the wicked bean

I remember a line spoken by a character in Jonathan Franzen’s novel The Corrections that says, roughly, “I can’t wait to go to bed at night so I can wake up in the morning and have coffee.” I may not have the words exactly right, but I agree with the sentiment. In contrast, Henry Thoreau said that water is the only drink for the wise man. I have been at war with these two sentiments my whole life. (And if you throw beer into the mix, you have a three-way smackdown) I have tried at various times in my life to give up coffee, using tea instead as my morning fix. I love good tea, but nothing beats the thrill of coffee. Judith Warner, a columnist for The New York Times and a much more eloquent writer than me, wrote a great blog post on the joys of coffee. I wonder what humans did before coffee. How awake could I become without coffee? But these are idle thoughts. With two small children and a demanding job, I’d decompose into a puddle of goo without my coffee. Someday I might be free of the brown, bitter beast, but for the time being, I’ll look upon my morning coffee as a joy rather than a shackle.

coffee and snow

Coffee and snow.
Men driving cars, men waiting in cars.
Styrofoam coffee cups and wet winter gloves.
Unshaved faces, watery eyes.
An old sportscaster on the radio
Reminds you of your father. What was that
Pitcher’s name from Cherryfield?
Men waiting in parking lots for wives to
Come out of shops. Snow and
Ice scrapers. Pickups with plows. All these
Lonely men, retired, laid off, getting out of the house,
Away from the old lady, rumbling around town
Playing Bob the Builder. Running errands,
Hardware store parts. The teenagers in black
Shuffling their way to the skatepark.
And you, waiting for opening day, parked
On a sidestreet in the snow, drinking
Cold coffee, yawning.
Through the trees, the New England wild landscapes.
Indians lived here once, surviving in winter caves and
Force-marching their prisoners through narrow
Mountain passes, swimming naked in lakes, wet deerhide.
No roads, no buildings. What did they do then?
With no snowplows to clear their driveways, no jobs, no coffee.

brilliant orange

Driving through the streets
of Amsterdam drinking coffee
listening to New Order
that old, metallic disco
slaloming around those pretty
orange traffic cones
those visitors from another galaxy
who make us feel chrome-plated
and safe. Blowing off the coffee steam
one hand on the wheel of my rented car
I taste the cream and sweet sugar, thinking
Anything can be beautiful.