May 29, 2012

Monday on Tuesday, back to routine, sometimes you wonder if a break in the routine is worth trying to get back into the routine at the end of it <smile>  I think summer has arrived, it's hot this morning, and the sky is the summer sky, blue all around broken only by the white clouds coming and going.  There is more breeze this morning, and the sun strobing in and out leaving long streaks of light and shadow across the yard.  The smooth wood of the crepe myrtle glows, painted with sunlight, and the wind chimes make flashes of reflection.  It's hot enough for the cicadas to be calling to each other already, the sound of summer, cicadas and lawnmowers.  Each morning, early just after sunrise or in the long cool of just about dark, someone is mowing, all summer long.  I don't think we would recognize summer without those two sounds.  Mourning doves are adding their own plaintive protest to the late starting week . . .

It's the day after a long weekend, and we all need something to wake us up a little . . .

Espresso

The black coffee they serve out of doors

among tables and chairs gaudy as insects.

Precious distillations

filled with the same strength as Yes and No.

It’s carried out from the gloomy kitchen

and looks into the sun without blinking.

In the daylight a dot of beneficent black

that quickly flows into a pale customer.

It’s like the drops of black profoundness

sometimes gathered up by the soul,

giving a salutary push: Go!

Inspiration to open your eyes.

Thomas Transtormer

We are not serving it out of doors this morning, but yes, coffee is welcome, and sometimes the inspiration to get up and get moving.  I'm about half for coffee, the other half is tea.  Some mornings, coffee seems too . . . aggressive.  I just want a nice cup of tea, want to wake up gently and warm.  The smell of coffee is its best attribute, that alone can wake you up, sometimes the taste is a pale ghost of that smell.  Tea on the other hand generally tastes more intense than it smells, something you have to get close to actually enjoy.  Coffee is a bully, it reaches out with that great and powerful smell and knocks you up the side of the head with it, and then, when you drink it, imparts the caffeine in a wallop . . . the salutary push!  Go!  While tea wheedles . . . aw, come on, get closer, inhale the aroma, feel your soul settle, now sip and slide into the day.  In my world there is a place for both attitudes!

Settle back into the routine . . . it will be a short week . . .