“Meals make the society, hold the fabric together in lots
of ways that were charming and interesting and intoxicating to me. The perfect
meal, or the best meals, occur in a context that frequently has very little to
do with the food itself.” Anthony Bourdain
This chipped coffee cup
was your favorite.
You liked its imperfections,
its history, broken pieces
glued by conversations..
life.. humanity.. miles.
You’d grin…Lift your cup
and joke it was impossible to break
something that couldn’t be fixed.
Hindsight is a blunt companion.
I swam the shallow end
of caffeine unaware
I was watching you drown.
Friday 55 ~ 6/8/18
A wonderful poem!!!
ReplyDeleteSuch a lucid take, Susie--and of course, all the more poignant for that knowledge which comes too late to be of any use. I especially like the middle tercet and single line following; what compression and what insight into all our joint fallibility.Thanks so much for putting this 55 on the table of a weekend of events with so much weight being carried, by all of us.
ReplyDeleteThis is a fine fine 55!
ReplyDeleteThe quote is truly insight to what it means to "feast and dine" to experience the human spirit walk, this human condition in this ever increasingly insane and disconnected world.
Your 55, as such, pays clear and careful attention to the same details - the sum totality of the experience isn't in the grandiose, the larger than life (for even when it happens or when we happen upon it) - but rather, in the common, the banal. And so often, much like the best of meals - the true food, is about the ingredients, whether literally, or in the other ways - the wrinkled brow that suddenly smooths itself in a shared smile, with a stranger, with a friend, a loved one.
And yes, hindsight - how often we "miss" - or sometimes see, but try to dissuade ourselves "otherwise" .... but sometimes, there is nothing for it, even if we wish it might have been, or could have been, very different. Sometimes, the hardest answers are the ones we will never have.
a sad work for a sad affair/ thanx
ReplyDelete"glued by... miles" So much power in the truth and juxtaposition dancing in these words. And that third stanza, oh my, what a brewer of sighs... because we've felt it, lived it, and will probably re-experience it again...
ReplyDeleteReading this, 'My cup runneth over' - with admiration ♥
ReplyDelete