forty-sixth at grace: June 2011

well hello

happy summer!

::::::::::::::

i like sweets for breakfast

more than at any other meal in fact.

it's a habit i picked up

in my apprenticeship days.

an assigned task

that led to a lasting affection.

back then
when we were finished

baking the breakfast pastries

and set to start on afternoon tea

we'd stop for morning coffee.

i was the newest on the team then

and it was my job to sort our break.

it was easy to remember,
it was always the same.

day after day, morning after morning
chocolate and butter sandwiches

and small cups of coffee.

i'd take warm white buns

straight from the rack,
the kind with little hats on top.

i'd rip them horizontally

and place a thick slice

of cold unsalted butter inside

atop that, two chocolate batons.

and i'll tell you what,

it was delicious

ALL CAPS DELICIOUS EVEN.

we'd stand to eat them

rushed by the clock ticking,

eager to get on with our day.

it's a memory akin to
the one i talk about here.

it was a little bit of perfection for my then, twenty year old self.

with that though, let's get back to today.

i like early summer almost as much as i like sweets at breakfast.
i like the start to the season.

i'm particularly taken with
the colours of roses
and the round heavy of peonies.

i like other people's gardens
their pretty scents

and their look-at-me beautiful.

i'm fascinated with how
trees turn from willowy silhouettes,
to tall kind of, minarets of green.

i like how grass,
that seemingly days before
wasn't there
now stands
near four feet tall.

i like that along the train tracks

beside the place where i sometimes live

there's a strip of wild like that.
apparently one day bare

then the next all sorts of green.

there's a perfect spot for my table there

alongside a white bush that blooms.

and you know what
there's a special kind of beauty
in watching the

city wake up from that place.

sheltered in that little spot of green

right in the centre and untended of it all,

yet right in the middle of the city.

there's magic in that

magic in eating sweets for breakfast there.

magic in the company