A Very Special Acorn

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Emily Dickinson’s poem, "The Soul Selects its Own Society" popped into my head this morning when I was dropping my grandson off at preschool. I had just parked my jeep under a tree with dozens, perhaps hundreds of acorns beneath it. 

Look at all these acorns! my grandson said. 

What kind of tree do you think this is? I asked, and was impressed when he knew it was an oak.

Just like the book about—, I started to say, but my grandson wasn’t listening. He was rolling the acorns under his sneakers and looking intently at each one. All were hatless, some of them crushed open but most of them still whole.

Here, he said, giving me the acorn pictured above. Keep this one!

I looked at the acorn he gave me, then at the dozens, no surely hundreds at my feet. Why this one? I asked.

Because it’s special. 

I put the acorn in my pocket and we trotted into the school. The soul selects her own society and then shuts the door, Emily Dickinson wrote. 

When I got home, I took the acorn out of my pocket and studied it. It's small, brown, with splotches of discolorations but no cracks— it looks like every other acorn I have ever seen beneath every other oak tree I have ever passed. 

         
I will never know why my grandson found this acorn so special. But he gave it me. He asked me to keep it. I know why it’s special to me.

I've known her — from an ample nation — 
Choose One —
Then — close the Valves of her attention —

Like Stone —

                                                         (Emily Dickinson)