February 8, 2007 : The Subjunctive Mood of Things



Every morning more or less
begins the same. I brew
the coffee that I have flown
in; USPS delivers it, but its
flown from Kailuha-Kona
where it’s grown 1500’ above
the Pacific, and roasted, bagged,
vacuum sealed, and mailed…
to me: a box with five
one pound gold bags of Estate, Kona
Blue Sky Coffee, medium roast.

Usually the prior afternoon while
preparing dinner, I fill the brewer
with water and the grinder with beans.
(Sometimes I forget.) At 5AM I brew the coffee
and bring an insulated cup of it to Pat,
and pour my own in a mug with the logo
of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and I sit
and read and brood. I sit: a hung
jury, sequestered, forced by a judge
to reconsider the facts…to ponder
the fates…to weigh again the evidence…
to reassess the testimony.

And you, Lord, through whom we all
have eyes, and who sees souls,
tell us if we all one
day will see your face.
(Antonio Machado)
I will make your overseers peace
and your taskmasters righteousness.
(Isaiah)
Some one is gone.
There is dust on everything in Nevada.

I pour the cream.
(William Stafford)

Visiting the moon is customary to feel
the metaphysical tug of things
toward one another. The white of
young girls crinolines in the late ‘50s,
puffing out their dresses like mini
Victorians. Dark sky lightened by
Celine’s last quarter and high pale
clouds, thin and racing from the west
bring thoughts of menstrual huts
of the Cherokees near Etowah north of here.

Like a botched hanging, there’s still life
in the hung jury, not totally disheartened,
and breath. Irony lightens the mood
as cream is poured into coffee. There is dust
motes everywhere as morning light streams
its rainbows through the sash. The face
of David Lynch, his strange hair, his cinematic
vision, his Hindu profession: a Unified Field,
his implicit connection….The subjunctive mood:
If… descends and settles: Yes.