Buttercups in a Glass Bottle

Do you still get awestruck?
I was shot to another world this morning
by buttercups in a glass bottle

You might assume I live off a dirt road
but the truth is my bones are more city than country

In a cafe with the best coffee outside of Disaster
I find throngs of people, the sounds of life that I live for
The kitchen symphony practices behind a closed door
at once drowned out by the roar of the coffee grinder
Conversations braid together with various inflection
A baby is crying and a mother is mothering
A man is leaving with a newspaper

which surprises me that men still read the newspaper

This is a neighborhood joint
People discuss family issues and things of that nature
I eavesdrop unintentionally
Its a relief from the heavy news I find myself reading daily
World War, Economic Collapse, Digital Tyranny,
Sometimes it’s nice to hear a woman say,
“He just doesn’t like to help with the dishes.”

Its nice to remember that as big as these problems are
people are fighting their own skirmishes on the road to a better life.

This cafe is great because of the people. The yoga people, the working people, the smiling people, the real people who have real problems and could care less about the plight of
Donald Trump or Michael Cohen.

Women who meet to do the women things. Men who meet to do the men things. People who sit out front and sip their coffee as though a 100-year blockade had just been lifted allowing coffee back into America.

It’s real life. It’s happening. Its all around you. It’s why I come here. The people aren’t me. They aren’t anything so easy to box up and categorize. They are just people.

It’s After Dark on the radio. It’s the exquisite sketch in the REQUESTS book that looks like Dhalsim from Street Fighter II and is begging for gluten-free brownies. It’s the laughter. It’s the shuffling of chairs. It’s even the signs taped on the glass that I don’t agree with.

It’s real people just trying. It’s the details, the little things that you have to intentionally notice in this world of distraction.

It’s the countertop decoration that one of these people thought necessary to share with every customer. It’s just simple. It’s a bunch of buttercups in a glass bottle.