Revelations of the bread & buttered kind

Revelations of the bread & buttered kind


Neatly aside of their plates,
silverware is purposefully positioned,
along with salt & pepper shakers,
which they in turn tip over and sprinkle,


upon their mound of cottage cheese,
burying it under black polka-dots.
Bread is either buttered or jam is spread,
and arranged gingerly on the damned tablecloth,


much to my anal retentive dismay,
off to the right or left of their plates.
Some will bow their heads in gratitude,
with others digging in, fork in hand.


Their cheeks balled out,
chomping as if a small basketball,
is squeezed inside them.
They chew in sync with mental clocks,

that tick away their lives,
in a daily ritual peppered with stress.
It comes to my mind that this place,
with all it’s idiosyncrasies,


has become their home away from home.
In this startling moment of discovery,
I find myself literally weak in the knees,
whereby vulnerability settles in


and I find my professional guard is down
and my heart and soul stumbles for the moment
in an overflowing wave of emotions.
They pick up their newspapers or books


and begin to read to themselves.
For in this moment in time my mind
has photographed,
their expressions, their faces, their personalities,


of which I choose to never forget
freeze-framed, locked solid in matte finish
for later retrieval in my mind’s
 own personal photo album.


So that when I need to flip through the pages
I will remember this thought that,
my restaurant was never just about the food.
it was for the love of the people.


Simply the people we have come to now know and love,
without one single, solitary regret.---©ginger meeder®