Time
Outside it’s raw, below zero. In this warm coffee shop protected from the elements, I desire simply to be and to think. Here time is fecund with possibility. Around me others are here for the same reason, a place to be where the differences in lifestyle, economic status, the weight of fortune, become a background note. In the foreground is the warm cup in our hand. The cup holds a hot libation, astringent, pungent with unidentifiable flavors of the earth. The beans were harvested by hand in countries with mountains, jungle. The cup in my hand is a bond between us, all of us in this place, and in places where coffee beans grow.
My first experience of coffee shops came in my early 20s. The place was called Fugetsudo, Moon Gate coffee shop. Located in Shinjuku, the place was a large cavernous room, high ceiling, dimly lit, dingy–but a refuge for expatriates, or students attending university in Tokyo, and anyone seeking solitude in company with others. (Yes, a paradox) I spent many hours there. That was over 40 years ago. Then and now, I am where I ought to be.
Today’s offering is a fragment of a Wendell Berry poem.
IX
….I’ve gone too far toward time,
And now have come back home
I stand and wait for light,
Flight weary, growing old,
And grieved for loss of time,
For loss of time’s gifts gone
With time forever, taught.
By time a timeless love.
*
I stand and wait for light
To open the dark night
I stand and wait for prayer
To come and find me here.Given Poems, Sabbaths 2000 by Wendell Berry
