Iron Horse.

A tale of trains, a railroad bridge, a temple of columns underneath that bridge, and a treasure unearthed on the bank of the small river traversed by that bridge...

Spent a recent afternoon with my son, exploring a debris-strewn stretch of river in search of frogs and turtles. We came to a small railroad bridge and followed the well-worn path from the tracks down to a secluded spot underneath the bridge, loud with graffiti and littered with shards of broken glass.

I looked across the river, at a solid-looking expanse of green duckweed from which several massive concrete columns rose to support the train bridge overhead. The series of arches and doorways formed by the columns and the long paths of light between them suggested an ancient temple. The effect was enhanced by beautiful and intriguing surface designs drawn and painted on the columns, 

more like hieroglyphics than graffiti.

I stood there and took this all in, transported by the unexpected sacredness of the place, and then took a couple pictures. Something at my feet caught my eye - something burnished and embedded in the compacted soil at the river's edge. I bent to pick up whatever was beckoning here, it was metal - copper I guessed from the warm tone - more or less round and very flat with a tiny eye-shaped hole on its edge. Delighted at the thought of stringing and wearing this small treasure (I am such a jewelry person!), I inspected it more closely. Though perfectly smooth, the surface of both sides bore shadowy images -what were they?

Then it hit me - this was a penny. 

It had been put on the track above, run over by a train and flattened. But it had escaped. As I ran this narrative in my head, I stopped and looked up and sure enough there was blue sky with drifting clouds alternating with track. So, my treasure had fallen through the spaces and languished here on the riverbank for how long? Years? Decades? The patina was aged-looking... and now I could just make out the slightly distorted profile of Lincoln on one side and the series of upright columns (echoing what I was looking at here in front of me) of the Lincoln Memorial on the other side. 

Later, at home with my treasure, I resisted the impulse to embellish it - I am a jewelry artisan, after all -and simply added a silver jump ring and a dark patina-ed ball chain. 

I slipped it over my head, thinking: LUCKY.