sitting with coffee in early sun
seeing the high ledges a mile off
where we go up to perch on edges
to peer down into the bowl
that cups our town’s tiny sprawl
into the creases and pleats between
the treed knobs of old mountains
a serene sprawl except when cars come
full of pilgrims with a taste for quaint
then I can’t find a place to park
then there goes quaint
then it’s more like New York
I glance into my coffee’s dark-browness
into it’s french-roastedness, and think of Maxwell House
how far I’ve come from
my mother’s ordinary
perked Maxwell’s
to free-market gourmet
dark-roasted Dean’s Beans,
expressed, french-pressed,
or dripped
how far up the food chain
from being the son
of a honey-dipper’s son
and bluecollar squirt to being one
within easy reach of lattes
and cappucinos fizzed from pots
in our town’s surfeit of java huts
lattes and cappucino for the world of one
cake and Maxwell House for the rest?
………………………
Jim Culleny
May 23, 2007
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