Dear Bean,
Though I’ve felt blessings from your grown, tended, matured, picked, roasted, and ground sacrifices untold times, I ask myself, have I uttered sincere worded verse that your tiny ears have heard? Gazed gratefully into your tiny, beneficent eyes so they might see my soul’s satisfaction? I do thereby publicly proclaim my adoration this day.
From childhood’s first inhaled heaven steaming from Gramma and Grampa’s percolator to browsing bags of you at the roastery, hearing the click of another half-pound on the punch card that leads to a free bag. Sipping an aromatic Kona sample as Betty rings me up for you and a custom-made sub with baguette, smoked Gouda, American, olives, spinach, sweet relish – and a bottle of local distillery vodka. You were part of my payday Friday night after-work ritual for 20 years. I’ll never forget those guts and glory times and your part in the glory. Waking up on Saturday afternoon with mild dis-ease, your grind, sniff, then pouring forth kept me heartened and motivated to last until pension and retirement away from the capitol and to the rurals.
Thank you for being a daily presence in my world since Gramma said, yes, a small cup. We’ve traveled the country, you a silent, rewarding companion; me, guzzling you and snapping varying camera incarnations to drop outputs at the Fotomat when back home. You’ve always made yourself available to me, through travels, power outages, and inflation. Through sleepovers at lovers’ and sipping you scalding along with a ham-less egg mcmuffin from the drive-through while rushing home to get ready and get to work on time. From heating you up from the day before and using flavored creamer to mask your less-than-freshness from sitting in a hot pot for hours. Thank you for generously sharing yourself with a partner who loves you as much as I do. There’s never been a more compatible menage et trois. I’m sure he’s still guzzling you, wherever he may be watching sunrise from these days.
You’ve never let me down. My trust in you is implicit. Even if faux-kings block bags of you being shelved locally, I’ll travel to you if I must. I must ask you though, before I close, what’s been in it for you? How have I enriched your being that keeps you unquestioningly faithful to me all of these years? I must know before the end. Take all of the time you need before answering, my dearest.
Yours,
Li
Laura is today’s host of dVerse’ Meeting The Bar/Forms. Laura gave us options. I chose:
2. The Prose Poetry Epistle. A style that keeps much of the lyricism of poetry without constriction by meter or rhyme and still employs techniques of alliteration, repetition, etc…
collage ©2021
Tao-Talk 
Your tribute to coffee does coffee the justice it deserves! I love this!
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Lisa, thank you <3
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There was a Jax store in our mall and the coffee area was wonderful! The scents, yummmmm!
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Cheryl, not sure what Jax is, but it sounds good!
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This is fabulous, Lisa! 👏🏼 ☕️
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Thanks much, Nancy! :)
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Very welcome!
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Hear! Hear! I second every word written in praise of Mr. /Ms. Bean!
Li, love this love letter. ❤️
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Punam, thanks so much. Coffee is a must.
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What would life be without coffee? 😑 VERY DULL! Fun tribute, Lisa!
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there is no life at all without it. Glad you are a fan of the bean :)
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This feels like a wonderfully irreverent ode disguised as a prose epistle… equal parts devotion, memory, and mischief ;-)
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Not surprised you would show up here, Tamara – well known coffee-phile that you are…
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Tamara, thanks so much for sharing what you see in my letter to Dear Bean. Bean really is my best friend <3
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I did not expect a letter to a coffee bean, Li – loved it…
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Happy to have surprised you, Andrew :)
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A delightful love letter to coffee, Lisa, and you went all out with the prose poetry epistle style. The direct address, ‘Dear Bean’, could have been a person, until I read ‘grown, tended, matured, picked, roasted, and ground’. My parents drank tea, so I didn’t get a whiff of coffee until a visit to my aunt, who drank the instant kind. I only really discovered it when I lived in Europe, so your memories made me quite envious!
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Kim thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. The only tea we ever had was Lipton’s pekoe and always overbrewed and bitter, so in my child’s mind tea was not good. I know better now.
Things you could always count on at the grandparents: fresh coffee, cigarettes, and cribbage.
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My grandfather smoked and my grandmother had one cigarette at Christmas!
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How funny/good she only had one a year. My grandpa smoked but grandma didn’t, and everybody who visited seemed to, aside from the kids.
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a powerful letter – you have brought the bean to life and although a small presence, hugely present throughout all the vicissitudes of your daily life – and best of all the cement in the ménage! time this bean deserved its own letter!
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<3 <3 <3
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That was fantastic, Lisa! Lol!
Yvette M Calleiro :-)
http://yvettemcalleiro.blogspot.com
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Yvette, now you know my true passion. Thanks :)
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I didn’t find “Bean” until my early 30s. Thank you for sharing him / her [not sure which pronoun to use in this day and age] with me. How delightful your journey has been. Feeling jealous, Bean loves you more than me!! I just know it.
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Helen, your comment makes me smile <3
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percolator alligator… made me smile crocodile… 🙂
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:)
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Love the writing….but I can say…I never got hooked on coffee…about the only thing lol. No, I am a tea guy.
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Mom always said each cat their own rat. Thanks, Max.
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I’ll remember that!
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