Terri
"Terri"
Scrawled on the left-hand page
Of one of my abandoned notebooks,
Notes for something I meant to write:
"A high voiced coffee server;
Her name is Terri.
Black framed eyeglasses,
lips that purse nicely;
her hair, black with one blonde streak,
flips convincingly as she serves
Americanos and Cappuccinos
to so many nameless fliers a day."
It was meant to be a poem
about that lonely-looking barista,
glanced for a just a moment in San Francisco,
two hours between Portland and home.
I remember the poem I meant to write,
though I barely recall the girl.
A love poem to an airport vision,
Some lines of longing,
debating whether I would twist a cliché
to leave my heart in a San Francisco biscotti jar,
and deciding good taste ruled against it;
Something quiet, and pretty, and sparkling
Like that barista on a California August morning.
I wish I had written it now,
rather than burying myself in Garcia-Marquez
while waiting for the plane.
But this is poetry; the search for moments
to indelibly etch in paper and ink
hoping to capture their magic forever;
and though all such quests are doomed to failure,
for no art can contain the fullness of a second's experience,
sometimes in searching for a reflection
I find something else entirely.
It's not what I was looking for,
but I'm glad to find it, just the same.
-5-30-2007
Scrawled on the left-hand page
Of one of my abandoned notebooks,
Notes for something I meant to write:
"A high voiced coffee server;
Her name is Terri.
Black framed eyeglasses,
lips that purse nicely;
her hair, black with one blonde streak,
flips convincingly as she serves
Americanos and Cappuccinos
to so many nameless fliers a day."
It was meant to be a poem
about that lonely-looking barista,
glanced for a just a moment in San Francisco,
two hours between Portland and home.
I remember the poem I meant to write,
though I barely recall the girl.
A love poem to an airport vision,
Some lines of longing,
debating whether I would twist a cliché
to leave my heart in a San Francisco biscotti jar,
and deciding good taste ruled against it;
Something quiet, and pretty, and sparkling
Like that barista on a California August morning.
I wish I had written it now,
rather than burying myself in Garcia-Marquez
while waiting for the plane.
But this is poetry; the search for moments
to indelibly etch in paper and ink
hoping to capture their magic forever;
and though all such quests are doomed to failure,
for no art can contain the fullness of a second's experience,
sometimes in searching for a reflection
I find something else entirely.
It's not what I was looking for,
but I'm glad to find it, just the same.
-5-30-2007