Newman Coffee Leaf

The brown beans, hard and brittle,

and the brown Newman leaves, soft and pliable,

have been dried and roasted…or cured.

Chlorophyll has escaped; genetic futures have closed.

Now, both sit on my table, and they have set their goal:

generate some verse.

Stir blood and memory,

muscle and electricity,

so that buried memories step forward

to find a partner,

better yet, two or more,

in order to intermingle ideas and passions, humors and vapors.

Serendipity, a young poem comes forth,

stretches out and crawls, bubbling, chortling,

in script across my journal page,

perhaps with rhyme,

but always with reason.

Still burning and glowing, chasing steam and smoke skyward,

the bean and leaf rest;

they have done their job.