This summer has been full of coffee. Iced coffee. Head back to the previous post (and nab the Spicy Sweet Tea Glazed Chicken recipe) to learn why. I’m a passionate tea drinker but I can drink down a cup of coffee with the best of them. I’m an equal opportunity caffeineist. Initially, I had wanted to share this poem, “metamorphosis” with you in June, where the poem starts, but life got in the way and I’m glad it did. Jonathan Pacic’s affinity for coffee goes deeply enough that he has written a whole series of coffee poetry, two of which he has kindly let me share here. If you haven’t read his poem “Confessions of a Coffee Snob #3” then head there first. We will wait for you before starting the metamorphosis. The “#3” is what gets me most about that poem. Tea snobs, coffee snobs, and even macaron snobs can relate to the idea that something worth caring about is worth writing about several times over.
Back to “metamorphosis”, the poem’s lack of punctuation only reiterates the idea that summer is endless. There’s a lazy slow molasses-like quality to how time moves. I can relate to how “hot afternoons yawn.” Heat becomes a formality that gets kicked-off. As seasons change if we look for the transition in the sky we might find it floating down to our cups and into the ways we spend our days. This is what I think makes “metamorphosis” perfect for sharing as summer comes to a close. Those practices that we seek to invite into our lives as the season begins hold valuable lessons for the season to come. If we let them, we might be able to unearth the metamorphosis happening inside each of us which might just mirror what is transpiring outside.
metamorphosis
in June
when the conditions are perfect
and hot afternoons yawn into warm
nearly-summer evenings
dinners move outside
televisions hibernate
the borders of bedtime
get pushed back
and coffee kicks off
the formality of heat
and kicks back
as iced-coffee
© by Jonathan Pacic, 2015
JONATHAN PACIC
Jonathan Pacic is a student of the moment and a teacher of fifth grade in Aurora,
Colorado. His work has appeared on the board of his classroom, the food literature
journal Alimentum, and on sticky notes in the lunchboxes of his three children. He is currently working on a collection of poetry for all readers and a middle grade novel for children. Visit his website, jonathanpacic.com to see more of his poetry and work.