Coffee
for
The river flows by in its rock-cut course
a thousand feet below the lone shepherd
sitting on a rock. His goats roam widely,
nibbling on berry-laden bushes,
jumping around in their frantic dances.
The shepherd pays them no mind — goats are smart,
do-it-yourself punks with iron stomachs
and more sense than the average merino.
This close to the source of the Nile’s birth,
coffee seems an ordinary matter —
fair-trade and shade-grown seem fantastic dreams
and Colombia and Sumatra are
distant dreamings, like Atlantis, or Mu,
or buried Ubar, lost beneath the sands.
