The Pearl

Flashback tonight...Hawaii trip...198something. My memories of that trip are limited and I believe most of them I have invented from the pictures. Vividly, amongst the fog, I remember visiting an oyster farm-or mock oyster farm, as it were. If it were real, there would be tourists diving in, right and left, trying their luck at nature's lottery ticket.

Though the setup shrieked of tourist trap, a child's mind could overlook the not so convincing underwater environment. The megaphoned guide wrapped his plastic jokes in the shiny ribbon that vacationing families could not resist.

I was fascinated. I couldn't keep my eyes away. I couldn't help but ache of jealousy as the hired diver, headed to the bottom, in search of the shiny opacity, gleaming on the tonguelike mollusk. I was not alone. The envy in the crowd was palpable.

People connect with the pearl. The pearl shares the fate of the princess and the pea. Covered in a shell cloaked to look like everyother oyster. The pearl lives incognito until it is long sought after. It is aching to be discovered, but made mute by it's creator.

It is the beauty of the corprolite.

It is wisdom's unit of measurement.

It requires work like the artichoke and the pomegranate-the first check point for the easily deterred.

I imagine the discovery of a pearl must equal that of an archaeologist sweeping the dust away in the last hour of desert sun, only to find the missing ankle bone of the T-Rex.

Or the tired sculptor's opening of the heavy kiln door, only to find the glazes made sweet love in the heated stone overnight and mixed beyond his wildest dreams.

Like the rainbow and the eclipse, the pearl is a happy accident.....a truly perfect collision of nature.