The Time Has Come…

[Meeting Minute 1207]

The time has come the old men said
To talk of many things
Of late breakfasts, and of soup de jour,
The joy that luncheon brings.

Because, you know, one old man said
The sun shines with all its might
But we are all still sitting here
In the half-dark, out of sight.

A waitress came and brought for them
Steaming soup, fried ham and eggs;
And everyone was silenced then
By that question lunchtime begs.

For, what does food at midday do
But build a bridge across the day,
But close the gap that hunger makes
And drive it greedily away?

And with their appetites satisfied
Conversation turned to this:
The names for soups and condiments
And such crumbs as old men miss.

Is it ‘mine-strone’ or ‘mini-stroney’
Indeed, is it yours and mine?
Such puzzles tease the well-fed brain;
Should we take it as a sign

That culinary stimulation reaches
Into mind through nerve and brain
And engenders talk of random thoughts,
Some exuberant and some inane?

For, this is how they give the world
Their pure distillate of wit
Scattering wisdom to the four wild winds
At lunch, dispersing it.

Oh, one of them is travelling now
Following the adventurer within
To find his Germanic nature
In the back streets of Berlin.

Another of them trades and sells,
Deals in anything you might buy:
Bricks and blocks, machinery,
Car parts, and tesserae.

Some of them talk of politics
And, with a nation still to found,
Curse for shills and charlatans
The lairds who hold them down.

But then to cake for, in the end,
It always comes to that
The short, short bread of millionaires
Chocolate, caramel and fat.

Like fragments of the eucharist
It is broken into pieces
This is my body, think of me
And what eating it releases.

This, my body, and my blood
Is the beverage in your cups
No-one ever goes untouched, they cried,
Who eats and speaks and sups.

The time has come the old men said
To go back the way we came
They cleaned their beards and spruced themselves
And headed home again.

©BH, 2017

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A group of men meet for lunch. Again. Another record of such a day. This time, forgive the whimsy, and apologies to the Walrus and his Carpenter.

Well, someone has to keep notes…

The image is really where it happened. Only the silhouettes have been changed to protect the inscrutable.