"Holding Wonder Like A Cup" ❤️

‘Holding Wonder Like A Cup’ | Reflections ❤️ 

Dr. Nazneen’s ‘Coffee’ Poem ☕ 

&

Sara Teasdale’s ‘Loveliness’ Poem 

Yesterday, I was sipping my cuppa in the SRO!

As for me, you see, well, I usually don’t gulp down my coffee impulsively, anytime! 😊

I take it quite slow! Probably anywhere around ten to fifteen minutes to sip my cuppa, sip by sip, after having delightfully done - with coffee baktha Husserl - ‘phenomenology out of my cuppa coffee’! 😉

That’s one reason why, when I find anyone gulping down their coffee in such haphazard quickness, I quietly observe a minute’s silence to their impulsive rashness, their indignant fastness, and their impetuous bruteness, in handling the brew – touted to be the nectar of the gods! 😊

It’s sheer injustice to the brew, ain’t it folks?

So it was, on this particular morning, I was having my cuppa coffee from my cup, and simultaneously reading something as well. Then, I proceeded to look quite admiringly and excitedly at the colour and the texture of the brew in front of me, glowing away in all its grandeur.

It was that ‘chance-y illa’ moment you see! 😊

Such a wonderful nectar of the gods, graciously handed down to us pavapetta mortals over the ages, I thought to myself!

In that moment of sweet thought, I also happily clicked away a couple of snaps of the lovely concoction!

Then by evening, I made sure I shared the joy on my Whatsapp status.

It felt so happy to see a few lovely responses coming in, from coffee lovers of my own kind and ilk!

But the most delightful one came from Dr. Nazneen, which literally ‘immortalised’ the cuppa and the brew within! 😊

So me thought of reproducing here below, the lovely Coffee poem, titled, ‘The Browny Golden Elixir’. ☕

“We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms,” says John Donne.

Reproducing here below, one such elegant, pretty room exclusively for coffee, built so beautifully, by Dr. Nazneen.

Beautiful, ain’t it?

With Keats, I believe, Dr. Nazneen is, a “happy melodist, unwearied, For ever piping songs for ever new”. 

More power to you, dear Nazneen ma’am!

And with Shelley, I wish to appreciate the fact that, “its sculptor well those passions read”, and has given us such a beautiful, evocative description of the coffee, in such impactful epithets, rich metaphors and evocative images, that I’m sure would continue to sway our hearts for long!

The poet here delightfully dons the role of a camera obscura, conjuring up such sweet sensory images of the cuppa, which reminds us again of Sara Teasdale’s lovely line, ‘holding wonder like a cup’.

‘Holding Wonder Like A Cup’

Yes! I should confess, that every other time this line crisscrosses my thoughts, I used to ruminate on the import of this line for long!

‘Holding wonder like a cup’

Well, why would Sara Teasdale say that?

Or what exactly does Sara mean by this lovely line?

I guess, the third (and last) stanza holds a clue!

Wonder could possibly connote to mean all the ‘loveliness that life gives you’.

All the lovely things, all the bright and beautiful things that life gives us!

May be there are occasions when some not-so-beautiful incidents happen to us.

But Sara Teasdale tells us to look beyond them all, and look admiringly at the ‘loveliness’ that life has to offer us.

Yes! We might have been wronged! We might have been saddened! We might have been disappointed!

But Sara Teasdale says… Wait!

‘Life has loveliness to sell’ yaar!

So cheer up! 😊

And then she winds up on this memorable poem, saying,

Spend all you have for loveliness,

Buy it and never count the cost;

For one white singing hour of peace

Count many a year of strife well lost,

And for a breath of ecstasy

Give all you have been, or could be.

Me too thought of winding up on this little ‘Coffee Post’, with Immanuel Kant’s Third Critique, The Critique of Judgment, where he talks about aesthetic judgments as “judgments of taste!”

To Kant, anything beautiful, like say, a cup of coffee, 😊 should appear to be ‘purposive without purpose!’

Purposive, without purpose!

Lovely, ain’t it!

That’s then, your ‘breath of ecstasy’ moment!

So yes, let’s join in echoing Sara Teasdale’s lovely words,

Spend all you have for loveliness,

Buy it and never count the cost;

For one white singing hour of peace

Count many a year of strife well lost,

And for a breath of ecstasy

Give all you have been, or could be!

Yes! For that ‘breath of ecstasy’ – Give all you have been, or could be!

Now, dear reader, I wish to make you ruminate on your own ‘breath of ecstasy’ moment, and be thankful in life!

Which I guess, is exactly what, ‘holding wonder in the cup’ is all about!

Awesome motivational lines, with such therapeutic appeal woven within its texture!