Elegy

Always you, until this morning.

You on the day breaking fair,
the enormous earth singing up
the sun through the soft, small
mouths of a hundred finches.

You on the day dawning foul,
my mind already choked by
ashen apparitions of all that
should not have happened.

Always you.

The throaty sound of your work commencing,
coaxing my ears from fitful sleep,
the water warming and pulsing
through the rich black grounds
that call me to begin, again.

All my life, only you knew how
to make the bitter sweet.

Oh, your fragrant breath,
your dark embrace of the awakening tongue!
Oh, your unflagging confidence,
contagious to my being:
Only drink, and this day
you can rise.

Always you.

You on the days the lover left,
and returned, and left.
You on the days the kittens played;
you on the days
the old cats died.

Always you, through
the births and deaths, through
the infinite in-betweens.
The constancy of your encouragement;
the one goodness that endured.

Always you, until this morning.

Some trouble vexes your secret workings;
your faithful heart pumps no more.
The carafe waits, and waits,
empty as a ghost haunting
the unspiced air, bland and insipid.

I am stricken.
And sluggish.
Also, crabby.

How I will miss you, always you —
flawless friend of my many mornings,
worthy, oh worthy, of the honorific:

Mr. Coffee.

Tags: coffee, humor, Mr. Coffee, poetry, spirituality