This coffee is like a miracle: <br />oil-slick black, <br />thick as night, <br />a transmutation of water <br />which has journeyed through deep earth <br />to emerge, by a secret ministry, <br />worlds different from before. <br /> <br />Water has lifted out the spirit of the grounds. <br />They brood together now, darkly locked, <br />held by a spell that cannot <br />be reversed. <br /> <br />I drink: <br />its force is a kick, <br />a slap of the sea <br />in a cave, <br />lapping its secrets of ocean. <br /> <br />I wreathe it round with the burning <br />of tobacco: <br />leaf turns to flame turns <br />to smoke, <br />rising like an offering, <br />winnowing <br />up… <br /> <br />It stirs in me - like crystals of sugar <br />revolving, dissolving - <br />a cry for transmutation. <br /> <br />My body and my mind are soothed, <br />are roused - strangely both - <br />but what can reach my spirit? <br /> <br />The wind rattles at the window, <br />there is a stirring abroad… <br /> <br />God, or spirit, or presence, <br />how can I pass my spirit through you, <br />fuse myself into something new? <br /> <br />Like coffee, like smoke, I cry, <br />transmute my spirit too.<br /><br />Mark Hamilton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/transmutation-5/
