Have mountains, and waves, and skies, no significance but what we consciously give them when we employ them as emblems of our thoughts? The world is emblematic. Parts of speech are metaphors, because the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind.

.......

Nature is a discipline of the understanding in intellectual truths. Our dealing with sensible objects is a constant exercise in the necessary lessons of difference, of likeness, of order, of being and seeming, of progressive arrangement; of ascent from particular to general; of combination to one end of manifold forces.... What tedious training, day after day, year after year, never ending, to form the common sense.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, from Nature

Coffee and Bacon

The rich silt of coffee grounds in my sink strainer,
The pearly hue of cooled bacon grease in my cast iron skillet,
They have a way of transporting me to a different place, somewhere on the prairie,
Or the open range a hundred or so years ago.
Frigid mornings, close to the earth, yet so cold, and the warmth,
Of cooking up the coffee,
Of frying the bacon.
Assuming these things were on hand of course...
But when they were, oh sweet perfection!
Fresh coffee aroma, a neural burst down the olfactory superhighway to a primitive cortex.
Chewy, and a little crisp, salty, fatty, bacon,
A joy not savored by my Kosher, Halal, or vegetarian brethren.
The granular grounds, inky black - what compost this will make! -
And psychedelic swirl of grease in a black pan,
With water,
And a little soap.
I think of these things in my cozy kitchen,
And consider the Oregon Trail, or anywhere else like that,
As I rinse out my french press.

-- SKE