Cafe Come Home

In a cafe
You can be lighthearted
About the tragedies of the world.

Because you’ve come home

And in the soul place
Everyone’s done OK
Enough

And the struggle, for now
Is over.

You’re in the boat.

You smile at a fellow conspirator
At a nearby table

But not for long
Because you mustn’t let on:
We’re all happy here!
No one must know!

‘Look, stop right there!’, you tell me
‘Enough of this
Preposterous self satisfaction
Don’t you know there’s a war on?’

‘Where?’

‘Everywhere! Never stops, never will.’

‘Then have a pause’, I say
‘For some soul satisfaction.

You might return a glimmer
Wiser
To the great debacle,
The sliding into the abyss,
Tobogganing into the yawning chaos..’

‘There you go again!’, you say
‘All this reckless disregard for demise
And universal urgency’

I yawn in anticipation of the next onslaught.
Then feel ashamed
and cough

‘I blame it on my Jewish ancestry’, I explain
By way of sociological excuse,

‘All those commands to rest and feast, you know.
Refusals to mourn in the face of death.

Singing of the Sabbath of Contentment
Within earshot of the battle cry.’

I order a chocolate cornflake crispy thing for your coffee
So we can sing our own Kiddush,
But you aren’t convinced.

‘I could make one of those at home
For 2 and half p!’ you cry,
Indignant.

‘But you haven’t’
I reply
And you relent.

I smile.
We smile.

No one can convince me
And I never can convince myself
That I don’t have any money
In a cafe

Cos in a soul space,
Abundance reigns.

Sarah de Nordwall Saturday 31st July 2010