Poetry Friday: Masks, and Fauci, and Coffee, Oh, My

Sooooo, I've posted a few times recently about masks on Facebook because, well, mask-wearing during a pandemic is just good scientific sense, and Anthony Fauci is my man.

Thanks, Jama Rattigan, for leading us to the bobblehead. 

(And no, I don't care how he throws a baseball.)

This mask is your basic, utilitarian pandemic gear:

However, my pal Tabatha (of The Opposite of Indifference fame) sent a link to a mask that she said made her think of me. (And with friends like Tabatha, one needn't worry about the friends on Facebook who have unfriended one for talking about masks.) 

Who could have imagined a mask that combines allusions to Gregorian chant, Psalm 130, and coffee? Someone did. And their "Out of the Depths I Have Cried for Coffee" mask reminded me of an ode to coffee that I wrote a few years ago. (My daughters mock me for calling 13-year chunks of time "a few years," but oh, just wait, daughters. Someday you'll understand the wibbly-wobbly that is time.) 

And so, with Poetry Friday just 45 minutes away as I type this, I give you my love song to coffee: 

How Do I Love Thee, Coffee? Let Me Count the Ways

(with my sincere apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning ....)

by Karen Edmisten 

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My cup can reach.

I love thee to the level of every day's

most quiet need (which is to start the day with you.)

I love thee freely (as I strive to awaken.)

I love thee purely (as one who is addicted.)

I love thee with a passion (which is embarrassing.)

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

when I was pregnant

and had morning sickness,

but my love is so strong

it was reclaimed when all sickness had passed.

I love thee with the breath (though coffee breath be not pleasant)

with the Smiles, tears, of all my life!

and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death,

for surely there is coffee in Heaven.

~~~~~~~~~~

Join Margaret at Reflections on the Teche for the Poetry Friday round-up. 

Poetry Friday: It's a Party at Ruth's Place!

Ruth, at There is No Such Thing as a God-forsaken Town is hosting the Poetry Friday party today and she's focusing on — you guessed it — parties. 

I miss parties. 

Well, I didn't actually go to a lot of parties pre-COVID. My INFJ/Enneagram 4/Melancholic/Introverted self didn't exactly seek them out on a regular basis. But, hey. I miss having the option to go to a party. I miss having a few people over for dinner. And mostly, I'm sad that we didn't get to throw the big bash we'd planned for Ramona, who graduated from our homeschool this year.

It would have been the kind of party that John Brandi sums up in this haiku. I can imagine our most beloved friends and family: meaning to leave, but lingering, having one more beer, just another glass of wine, a few more minutes of talk and laughter, moments that stretch into a few more hours.

We'll have that party for Ramona someday.

In the meantime, friends, there's poetry.

Poetry Friday: "I, Too" by Langston Hughes

I, Too
by Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
....
(Read the rest here, at The Poetry Foundation.)

~~~~~~~~~~

Linda Mitchell has the round-up at A Word Edgewise.