Old Men in the Coffee Shop
Brandon Cook
I admire the old men who have mastered the delicate art
Of conversations that don’t smart or spark too much bile—
The work of masters, really,
A Mona Lisa smile in monologues that move sure and slow, without mincing up the mind nor touching the heart with acid,
But not flaccid, either, strong and solid their laments
Flowing in and out like rhymes and couplets, in time with their sips and the whining grinding of beans just behind them, as customers don polite smiles, bright on every side
And each man speaks his peace and says his lines, to define the darkness of the world
It takes a specific talent, honed through years, to sit still between mouthfuls of bagel—
not over a latte, mind you (God forbid), but coffee good and black and hearty, to put hair on your back,
In lament and stoicism they sip and spit, yet always they protect the hidden heart, where despite all their protestations, still are stored unspent tears they have yet scorched away
Today,
They talked of meningitis and a friend who had it
He recovered, but by God the hate with which they spat at it
“A terrible thing”, and fists pounded the table, like gavels, their graveled voices rising
As they always do, discussing war or this or that damn thing
They’ve earned it, this anger tightly held, through hard years,
Survivors hard-shelled on dark beaches, whose secrets they’ll never tell
Now ascended to their rightful benches
Judges, passing righteous sentence on all the painful world
I don’t begrudge them it
You wrestle enough bears, you should have your due, sipping coffee and decrying hard truth,
Your heart safe atop a bench of stone, where it can rest, and calm the bones
Frayed by the wisdom of so many storm-swept days
After all,
Sometimes all any of us can do is shake a fist at the sky and turn back, hoping good company can defy encroaching shadows,
And enjoying with what will you can the good dark drink of mother earth, you hope against hope for some new birth
Trusting that what lies beyond will, like a scythe, cut from you all the longing you had to despise
And throw you, at last, into the skies
Perhaps heaven, will be, in a way, a great golden sea of coffee shop
Where old friends meet and, at long last, have their cry
And say still, “Even for all that, ay,
Wasn’t there beauty under every sky?”