Forgotten in the rank long grass
A Café of an ancient class,
Purloining in a classic way
Good beverages of yesterday.
Astride a weathered timber seat
We sat and deigned to rest our feet,
The comfort in this run down place
Permitting smiles to crease our face.

We happened, on this windy day,
To watch the rippled grasses sway,
Watched the starlings flock and mass
Above, in clouds of seething gas.
Autumn tones in billowed leaves
Gathered as the breezes pleased.
Stretched the legs and felt the sun….
Joyously, we laughed, as one.

She served us mugs of steaming brew
A thick Moroccan medley stew
With vegetables in chilli’s bite
And sautéed lamb to add delight.
So glorious, in the afternoon,
We sipped, deliciously, attuned.
Moments, in that space of time,
To make our wondrous day….sublime.

M.
Taranaki, NZ
April 2022

Restless hungry, found a tiny scrap of a brownie in the back of the refrigerator, wrapped in plastic about the size of a large 35 cent quarter.  
Gobbled up and gone.

Eye had purchased it a week ago, maybe more.  
Actually it was more like eye was held up at gunpoint by a sad young face for a large and green single dollar Bill.
In return, was bequeathed said brownie eye dropper-ful.

The  apartment I live in a big city, many apartments were recession empty for a long time.  But in the last few years, the empty apartments in the building were almost all sold to foreigners.  
Now the bldg is an amulet melted of the lucky overseas fortunate, those overseers overseas seizers, who come to reside in the most fabulous site in these United States...and buy a piece of the dream away from the be-headers, secret police or governments that decide you are now an enemy of the state, as of this morning. No judgement.

anyway, this doe eyed child of estimated six or eight years of age accosts me in our large lobby, proffers me the brownie scrap for a Bill.

me a sucker of a salesman myself, and an eye affician-doe, well those doefuls, those eyes, no one could resist!

so eye asked her name,
but all she could say in
Anglais was...

"Brownie One Dollar?"

laughing out loud for no apparent cause,
the hanging about lobbyists looked at me staring...
Why was eye laughing?

laughing cause eye realized
this elfin child had become
fitfully but fully Americanized.

and I loved her eyes in mine, and when I see her periodically, I say:

"Hey! Brownie One Dollar, How are ya!"

and everyone snicker smiles at the old man with the even stupider grin upon his eyes.

That would be eye.