I was digging around on the trusty old Internet yesterday and found a poem by a good friend whom I haven't talked to in a long-ass time, Ralph. Ralph is a great guy--and a damn fine poet and an excellent teacher. His work has a sense of reality to it and is quite approachable without being clichéd or, for want of better terms, obvious. The lines "And in a suite of a distantly glassed hotel,/some committee awaiting the entrance of a chosen stranger/will shuffle the papers, tap the floor, and defer/to another cup of coffee" seem particularly apt, and descriptive of weariness or malaise or uncaring bureaucracy of a universe that seems to end in numbness.

It was moving day yesterday for the Gueveras, which, because my buddies and I didn't get there until later, consisted of drinking beer and eating pizza. It was a classic Guevera party--lots of shots and lots of fun. I danced. I cavorted.

This morning is one of those mornings where I really want a cup of coffee. Not your thin, weak, diner coffee, but rich thick espresso. Ah how easily most physical desires are fulfilled. At just a slight expense, there it is: a thick rich mug of hot brew. Now if intellectual, or, for want of better terms, spiritual desires could so easily be fulfilled. Dickinson tells us that she "tastes a liquor never brewed" (1) still seemingly referring to the physical world:

Inebriate of air am I,

And debauchee of dew,

Reeling, through endless summer days,

From inns of molten blue. (5-8)

Summer, it would seem has the best of her. I know how she feels, but at the same time

Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,

And saints to windows run,

To see the little tippler

Learning against the sun! (13-16)

So the shift from summer to fall carries, but the poem doesn't seem to offer up any sadness at the change, and in fact inspires awe or at least excitement among saints.