The Discovery of Coffee

The Discovery of Coffee    
   
Her spirit was first made flesh    
before the fall of Atlantis    
in the ancient coffee forests    
of the Ethiopian plateau    
where she was the first    
to find out that the bean    
was more than something    
picked by children for fun    
And she was the one of those kids    
Who gathered magic beans for play    
Only to learn that they made much more    
Than a basket full of pretty seeds    
But when dropped in a pot    
Held over a fire    
Became a brew of exquisite flavor    
To brighten the day of nomads    
Such as Khaldi the goat herder    
Who realized the worth of this beverage    
And begged the girl to give him credit    
Because his family was poor and hungry    
While her parents wore regal robes    
And owned a granary bursting with wheat    
   
So Rewina let go of her fame    
To nourish the bones and flesh    
Of a family whose hunger she never knew    
As a dark wind blew through the coffee trees    
And shook the kernels worth their weight in gold    
With a future of riches beyond her young imagination    
But real as the ancestral spirits she worshipped    
In the depths of forests stretching out into the hills    
Of a homeland whose springs she bathed in    
On the slopes of a blue evening    
When mother called from a distant point in time    
Where love wrapped around her gentle shoulders    
To comfort her in blankets of serenity    
   
But one day the goat herd found her deep in meditation    
By the river that fed the thirst of the land    
And surprised her with tales of plenty    
Bought for his family by her gift    
And he placed in her tiny hand    
A deed to tracts of the bean trees    
Because his wealth had accrued    
So that his family needed no more    
And he desired to share his fortune    
With the one who had gifted him these treasures    
   
Rewina smiled with tears of joy    
And took the notched wood    
Of ownership from him    
As she ran like a gazelle through the fields    
To tell her parents of the miracle of love    
Born of a tiny nut from heaven

And so the girl gave the credit
for her discovery of coffee to the goat herder
to feed his hungry family
But when he got rich from it
he gave his coffee trees back to her family
The good deed is returned