The life of a penny, well, when does it end?
It doesn't, as far as I know of my friend.
Starting out newly minted, so shiny and new.
It could travel for miles, now that much is true.
For decades it travels, it sure gets around!
In pockets, in purses, it passes through town.

After towns...cities, banks, stores, restaurants, and bars.
Riding on streetcars, in trains, planes, and cars.
I know of one dated Nineteen Forty-two,
can you just imagine what that coin has gone through?
Maybe used to buy candy at a small country store?
Perhaps carried by a soldier in the Second World War?
Popped in a machine with a gumball achieved,
then later set free when the coins are retrieved?
Then back to the bank, once again on its way.
Passed from one to another, different hands every day.
If that Penny could speak of all that it's known,
would it talk about fountains in which it was thrown?
Making wishes come true, or then again not.
But bringing some hope, even so, with the thought.
Now it's worn and dirty and sits in a jar,
with other pennies older then it is by far.
For I'm a collector of things from the past,
not like today's junk, but things that will last.
Imagination takes over when the coins in my hand.
The coin that I found buried down in the sand.
Who touched it, who saved it, who spent it with glee?
How far did it travel, 'till it came to me?
Nobody likes pennies anymore, I must say,
though I'm glad that Nineteen Forty-two came my way.
It helps me to dream as poets will do,
I hope an old penny, one day comes to you.