Re:turning a Penny

I bicycled down to Lake Merrit this morning to participate in a poetry writing workshop that I had seen posted on a bulletin board earlier in the week. This first workshop was led by Jennifer King, Director of the Downtown Oakland Senior Center. We turned out to be a heterogeneous gang of seven 'students' representing a variety of ethnic backgrounds and both genders.
After quick introductions, we were given a couple of short poems to read aloud: “Those Winter Sundays” and "Full Moon" by Robert Hayden, a black American poet from Detroit. When enough reflections on winter Sundays had warmed us up to the task at hand, Jennifer gave us each a penny and asked us to reflect on the date. Mine was 1993. This is what came out when a copper coin was inserted in the slot in front of me:

Returning a penny
Nineteen hundred and ninety three.
Three years after the fall of the wall
where would I be if the penny
had taken another turn.
Here I am sixteen years later
and still spinning around (the earth)
listening to the rooster crow
while you are making dinner,
waking up as you prepare to sleep.
You say it is below zero in Europe today
and I tell you the sun is shining.
What is right, wrong, your honor,
heads or tales, East or West?
Humpty dumpty, can you see me now,
even though we are on different sides
of the mirror?

(Special thanks today for workshop members: Jessie for your "List called Gratitude", Eleanor's pantoum "I'm not sorry", Jennifer's "If it pleases the King", and Mathias W at AAC Global, my facilitator on the other side.)

Local Berkeley vagrant rests today after a long bike ride and intensive workshop.
Comment from Stockholm: "She would have turned into ice if she were here."