I live in the city now
and mostly that means
when I stoop to pick the paper up
off of the sidewalk
I can smell
coffee and toast
in someone else’s kitchen,
proof that neither the apocalypse
nor the Rapture happened
between last night
and this morning;
proof of houses still standing
and people still in them, proof of
electricity to run the toaster, of past bills paid to
Wisconsin Public Service;
it means this summer there were wheat fields
and people with donkeys picking their way
up and down the hills of Costa Rica, it means
there were sugar cane fields and workers
that took loaves out of ovens,
that they wrapped and
put them on trucks so that bleary-eyed drivers
sipping gas station coffee could take the bundles
to the Kwik Trips and Piggly Wiggly stores,
it means gas pipelines flowed and and
a bored cashier handed my neighbor change, saying
“have a good day” and he probably said
“you betcha, you too”;
it means your neighbor woke up today
and it means you did too,
catching the smallest tendril
of aroma of toasting bread that crept
along the alleys and over the mums,
that rose insistently to tell you not
about coffee or toast
but telling you that as of yesterday,
civilization stood,
and it reminds you of that open question that has been asked of you,
that Mary Oliver awaits your response –
your wild and precious life
standing by.
Halfway North 