luck

Walking Dylan home today approaching the corner of Lynn and 15th I looked down and saw it. I wasn't looking, for once, actually I was looking in particular at the trees - the cherry, the ones overtaken by moss, the indeterminate fruit - today. Yet somehow from the mass it's four leaves stopped motion and caught my eye. I crouched down, verified and plucked it in awe. Yes, an actual four leaf clover. Carrying it back home extended a bit from my body sort of delighted at this mythical thing. Thinking how less mythical the mutation but the happening upon it, the way you can comb your fingers through hundreds of clover masses and then one day, "oh look, a four leaf clover!" And also how even something so perfectly imperfect in reality turns out so perfectly imperfect; the four little leaves marred by bugs and asymmetrical of course.
And then the risk of preserving this thing which is a sort of story. I decided to press the clover to dry between the pages of my dictionary. Not because I know how to do this sort of thing but because my mother used to and because I always liked the romance, the surprise of things found in books. And besides, what's the alternative? I didn't know of a better way to save this thing. And so I pressed the clover in tissue knowing one of the four leaves might break off the stem. Which pages did I press it between? Well, there with the entry for "luck," of course.