Coffee

came to me on a white-tailed horse
like all the light on a sunless morning.

We rode away on the road to Samarkand
with my Muse side-saddle behind.

Coffee rolls out the red carpet
wherever I’m on the awards list,

held my hand for the COVID shot.
Never jealous when I’m out late

drinking Rev. Nat’s good cider; coffee
is always my first thing in the morning.

Biggest locomotive on the Revelation Trail,
my private F6 tornado, my Richter 8 quake,

coffee was born in montane Ethiopia and
carried in the horns of dancing goats

across every ocean, the Horse Latitudes
and the Doldrums. Coffee destroyed the Doldrums.

Coffee kick-started the Gulf Stream. It’s a black horse
with a white tail. Coffee is the great grey owl

glimpsed in the headlights after midnight
on Thanksgiving. It’s the widest gap between

any two stars in the Milky Way. It’s the eclipse
of the moon and the solar storm.

Coffee can re-freeze the Thwaite Glacier,
put out the fires in Mount Semeru. You know

what I’m saying? Coffee can save the world.

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