Coffee at Holly's Corner

Coffee at Holly’s Corner
(“Jesus replied, ‘What is impossible with man is possible with God.’” Luke 18:27)

“A trip would certainly do me good,
along the rails watching winter coast to coast.
Life isn’t too quiet, and the noise needs not abate,
it’s children and friends too far away that have caused
my heart to feel cornered in such a beautiful place.”

She nearly finished her conversation with the customer before me,
nodding “cappuccino 2%” my way. I nodded too, and she took a cup
empty from its stack
and landed it with a question on the counter.

“I shouldn’t feel this way,” she whispered and asked,
tick-tocking between the first customer and me,
“Life is balanced now and the river runs silent,
so why am I
unnerved like lonely, unsure like the last child upon the playground.”

I couldn’t help her, no magic wands can chase the blues,
(it was my snap-diagnosis; it may have been the weather or
a song on the radio, or a latent early morning dream).
I couldn’t help her, no magic words can change the moves
(there are no transplant drugs for geographic upheavals,
loving one place so long and landing new a little).

It might pay to wait, defer the hope,
wait out the winter, visit the kids,
or offer conversation to the barista
who never meant to bend an ear so personal.

For all the children, happy and 80, who played together
on summer swings; it is hard to explain, this tedium that
looks so sad when the birds are a-wing on a late October sky.
But I’ve looked for friends I loved (did you get my call)
before I knew to be blue over no one left to talk to.

Last week two 85 year old school girls giggled about
looking for boys in sixth grade at the Grange.

I couldn’t help her, our brand-new barista,
but the sky turned bright by noon today and rain
was suspended while the editor, artist and daughter
sipped like a family at the front table where the morning shafts
always fell.