Poems in Progress: Morning Coffee (after 40)

Like half and half swirling into coffee,
Often the most chaotic part of life
Occurs in the middle.

The initial splash
Is always exciting—wondering how much
There will be—watching the tiny explosions
As white impacts black and droplets of both
Fly into the air—but things are still simple
Enough.

The end has its clear benefits:
A consistent dark brown spread everywhere
In thermal balance: a settling down
Which lends itself to slowly sipping time:
But there is also a certain boredom—
Beauty too—when entropy wins out.

All the really big things happen in the
Middle, when the swirls are at their strongest.
Things are hard to distinguish; uncertainty
Reigns for a moment; confusion rules the day;
But there is something nuanced about the
Immeasurable—something gained from chaos—
Something worth the trouble to figure out.

The climax: the peak: the time when, perhaps,
Our experience is closest to true
Versions of whatever reality is.