Coffee House Poets
They like to write
where people are.
They like a little noise
with their silence.
They want to look up
and see something.
They want to be surprised.
They like the flow
of bodies around them.
Or perhaps it’s just loneliness—
yes, that too.
But more than that:
They like the atmosphere
A little smoke laden.
They like aromas—
Coffee, tobacco, meat frying.
They like the sudden revelation
As eyes look off
or blur with tears
looking across a table.
Where others court eternity,
they’re in love with the moment
in all its tawdriness and glory,
that instant when truth appears
out of nowhere—a truth
as simple and as natural
as people sitting together
in a room over coffee
in all their vulnerability
and their humanness.
– Albert Huffstickler –
~~~~~~~~~~~
The Inner History of a Day
No one knew the name of this day;
Born quietly from deepest night,
It hid its face in light,
Demanded nothing for itself,
Opened out to offer each of us
A field of brightness that traveled ahead,
Providing in time, ground to hold our footsteps
And the light of thought to show the way.
The mind of the day draws no attention;
It dwells within the silence with elegance
To create a space for all our words,
Drawing us to listen inward and outward.
We seldom notice how each day is a holy place
Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,
Transforming our broken fragments
Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.
Somewhere in us a dignity presides
That is more gracious than the smallness
That fuels us with fear and force,
A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.
So at the end of this day, we give thanks
For being betrothed to the unknown
And for the secret work
Through which the mind of the day
And wisdom of the soul become one.
– John O’Donohue –
~~~~~~~~~~
Sunlit Meadow Photo by Niklas Hamann on Unsplash
Photo of Albert Huffstickler by Bruce Dye,
The Austin Chronicle, March 28, 1997
Photo of John O’Donohue: Unknown Photographer
