Value in Smallness

I found a penny today, its surface

not so shiny, but marked with a tale.

I bent down, the weight of the moment,

    not just the copper

    but a history, pressed thin,

    between seams of a cracked sidewalk.

It rolled into darkness, a jagged crack,

as if the earth had whispered,

    here, take your smallness,

    your little treasures,

    and watch them disappear,

like wishes made on pennies,

    tossed into wells—

    the sound of water swallowing hope.