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I don't know exactly when I discovered The Writer's Almanac, Garrison Keillor's daily show that includes a poem and some highlights from that date in literary history, but it is a vital element in my morning routine. My mom listened to it when I was in college, as I remember her hushing me and running over the radio to turn up the volume one morning when I'd just gotten home for summer break after my freshman year. I started subscribing to the daily email version six or seven years ago, and now I read it before I settle down into my work for the day.
This morning, the poem was one written by Marge Piercy and is called In Praise of Joe. It is a lyrical devotion to the morning cup of coffee and contains delicious praise for coffee in all its forms. If you are a coffee lover, you may see yourself in her words. I know I do.
I love you hot
I love you iced and in a pinch
I will even consume you tepid.
Dark brown as wet bark of an apple tree,
dark as the waters flowing out of a spooky swamp
rich with tannin and smelling of thick life-
but you have your own scent that even
rising as steam kicks my brain into gear.
I drink you rancid out of vending machines,
I drink you at coffee bars for $6 a hit,
I drink you dribbling down my chin from a thermos
in cars, in stadiums, on the moonwashed beach.
Mornings you go off in my mouth like an electric
siren, radiating to my fingertips and toes.
You rattle my spine and buzz in my brain.
Whether latte, cappuccino, black or Greek
you keep me cooking, you keep me on line.
Without you, I would never get out of bed
but spend my life pressing the snooze
button. I would creep through wan days
in the form of a large shiny slug.
You waken in me the gift of speech when I
am dumb as a rock buried in damp earth.
It is you who make me human every dawn.
All my books are written with your ink.
"In Praise of Joe" by Marge Piercy from The Crooked Inheritance. © Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.
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8-21-2008 @12:59PM Joey Davis said... I love coffee and everything that surrounds it. Have even entertained the thought of opening a coffeehouse of my own, simply because I love coffee, people, and God for creating it :)
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