The Older Bald Guy was sitting at his regular table in the corner. In his cup was a blend of Kenyan Estate AA and Indian Peaberry that he savoured as he tried to rid his mind of the funk that had settled upon him. He had just passed through a nearby mall, and was disturbed by the nihilist lyrics of some of the music being played publicly throughout the popular shopping centre. On the small stage, the Folksinger gave a full dose of poignancy to the old 1965 song, “Bright, Elusive Butterfly of Love.” The OBG felt the despair of innocence lost more strongly than was his custom. A great believer in the truth and sincerity of the hippie movement in its’ seminal days, the OBG wondered if some aspects of modern music and lyrics were not spawned in cultural reaction to the Sixties’ aborted quest for truth, love, and peace. He hoped not: he preferred to think that violent and aggressively sexual music and lyrics were legitimate responses to difficult societal times.
The Resident Radical was berating the Owner/Hostess over her inclusion of Guatemalan Arabica on the list of coffees available. He claimed that the running dog capitalist government of Guatemala exploited the coffee workers solely to provide Wall Street robber barons with a cheaper cup of coffee. He would not listen to O/H’s argument that the present Guatemalan government had assisted in streamlining the coffee industry in Guatemala, thus creating several thousand jobs that had not existed previously.
The Poet in the Beret was having a discussion with the English Major Coed about whether the Lake Poets were effete elitists, or if they actually were aware of the class struggle going on around their Olympian fields of daffodils.
The OBG sighed, ordered another blend with single cream and double Demerara sugar, and looked over the lines he had been writing on his steno pad.
The Echo in the Storm
The tempest continued to grow
in unabridged intensity.
At some other points in time
it had seemed almost as catastrophic,
but not quite.
Years ago, perhaps yesterday,
breaks had appeared
in a cloud cover that threatened to erase
all memory of a sun
dimly remembered.
Several times, before today,
sunbeams fell on streets
and on meadows, illuminating
life with fond remembrance
of better days.
Did we, by not pausing
to appreciate this fleeting splendour,
signal to unknown gods our proclivity
for eclipsing light and order
with self-imposed Chaos?
