Got this in a link from an email from Patti Smith today. It's about her Mom; today's the anniversary of when her mom died. The poem made me smile. Patti's trying to write a little every day now and post on her website. Maybe some of you apples will like reading this too:
If the universe of coffee desires a queen,
may it choose the spirit of my mother,
for none loved their coffee more. I can hardly picture
her without a cup before her, or hearing her say:
"Grant, why don't you make us a pot?"
My father always made the coffee as he preferred his
technique over hers and somewhere
along the line he won the argument
between them as to who made the best coffee.
I adored going to the A&P with my mother.
They had bins of coffee beans and I was allowed
to scoop them in an 8 O'clock coffee bag
and hand them to the grinder. I loved the
aroma and holding the bag with the warm
freshly ground beans. He would often
not grind it fine enough and my mother
would send me back to him while she
contemplated the ripeness of melons.
I was allowed to carry the bag on our long
walk home. A fresh pot of coffee was soon
in the offering. I wasn't allowed to have any
but I would watch her drink hers, fascinated,
certain of its magical properties.
My mom had her Bette Davis ways.
She was a real 30s style smoker,
putting her whole self into the ritual
of inhaling and exhaling. She'd sit
listening to Artie Shaw, chain smoking
Tareytons with the micronite filter.
When she left the table, my siblings
and I would sip the remains of her coffee and
pick apart the butts, looking for bits of charcoal.
In her later life, my mother had to give up smoking.
She also had to give up sugar, so she switched
to Sweet and Low in the little pink packets.
She never gave up coffee, she once said she'd
die first.
In the last years of her life I would visit and
I remember descending the stairs and seeing
her alone in the kitchen working on a puzzle,
with a quiz show blaring from her little black
and white TV, and her cup of coffee before her,
Occasionally I would see her silently reach
for a phantom cigarette in a non-existent ashtray,
just from habit.
Today is September 19th. The anniversary
of my mother's death. She left me her stories,
her wisdom, her love, and surely her appreciation
for one of my favorite things. A good strong cup
of coffee. Whenever I reach for mine, I see her hand
reaching for hers. Coffee. An elixir brewed from a
universe where she is surely queen.
- Patti Smith