Clovers

"People that build their houses inland,
People that buy a plot of ground
Shaped like a house, and build a house there,
Far from the sea-board, far from the sound

Of water sucking the hollow ledges,
Tons of water striking the shore,--
What do they long for, as I long for
One salt smell of the sea once more?

People the waves have not awakened,
Spanking the boats at the harbor's head,
What do they long for, as I long for,--
Starting up in my inland bed,

Beating the narrow walls, and finding
Neither a window nor a door,
Screaming to God for death by drowning,--
One salt taste of the sea once more?"

I was searching the internet for a poem. A poem of the sea, by a woman. I didn't know what woman, I just knew it was going to be about the sea. So were my priorities.

Edna St. Vincent Millay turned out to be that woman; the one who did the sea justice. I read, my eyes squinting against the harsh glow of the computer screen, of how she longed for the nearness of water. Of how she was stuck inland and no one seemed to think this strange. Reading poetry in pixels has always bothered me, so I powered down and found my keys.

As I was walking out the door my sister poked her head over the rim of the cardboard box she was sitting in.

"Where are you going?" She asked.

"Why are you sitting in a box?" I returned.

When I looked into her fort I noticed the bottom was strewn with washable felt-tip markers.

"I'm going to cover the inside of this box with rainbow spirals and then draw the outside so it looks like all the colors are seeping through the cracks. Where are you going?"

"To Powell's to get a book for school. Wanna come?"

"Yeah, I guess... I wanna look at the zines."

We go out the front door, into my truck, across two bridges and one state line. We walked up Burnside and into the bookstore. This is usually an overwhelming experience for me, but today I knew what I wanted. Today I was ready.

I picked out the oldest book on her section of the shelf. It was dark blue with embossed gold writing. "Collected Lyrics," it was called, by Edna St. Vincent Millay. It had been published in 1939 and on the inside cover a women named Eva had penned her name and the date. October 8th 1959. $9 and ten minutes later I was reading it at the coffee shop across the street.

"This Powell's doesn't have as good of a zine section as the one on Hawthorne." My sister complained. "I was hoping that was the one you were going to."

"Are you really that interested in zines? I hadn't noticed..."

"Well, yeah. Some of them are pretty cool. I like how short they usually are and how I can put them in my pocket."

For a 13-year-old who never seemed interested in the same things as me, I was surprised.

"Well, finish your chai and we can go next door to Reading Frenzy and I'll buy you some zines." I offered.

"Where?"

"Reading Frenzy." I said, pointing to the shop next door. "They sell a lot of really cool zines."

An hour later we were headed home. Me with my eyes on the road, my sister with her nose in the new issue of Doris.

The next day I was waiting outside my Women's Studies classroom, waiting for the teacher t get there to unlock the door and pouring over the poem I was going to be reading to the class, when something fluttered out of my newly bought book and onto the ground. I bent down and picked it up. It was a perfectly pressed four-leaf clover, leaves a translucent green brown. I carefully flipped through the book and found three more just like it.

"Thanks for the extra luck, Eva." I whispered.

When I got home I carefully placed all four four-leaf clovers in a matchbox and set it on my book shelf.