Prose poem …

 My friend Katherine wrote this. I asked her for permission to post it here. I think it’s wonderful.

Ode to Glassware
by Katherine Miller

Right now your hands may be clutching one, your fingers may be clasped

around a stem, your palm may be damp with condensation from its iceyk

contents, you may have set it down on the table next to you or you may

be staring at a pile of them from last night's party.  Glassware.

The wild world of endless choices, each with specific purpose, each

infinitesimally refined within its broader purpose.

Wanna have a beer?  You can choose a frosty mug, a tall pilsner glass,

a pint (powerful choice), or a loud gaudy and very heavy beer stein of

the Oktoberfest variety that is made for swinging and singing. If

you’re in college or at a family reunion beer is always served in Solo

cups.  Period.

Tom Standage wrote a book, The History of the World in 6 Glasses,

which chronicles world history through the development of beer, wine,

spirits, tea, coffee, and soda. Think of all the glassware!  Our

choices are endless: some with memories, some passing as art, most

offering style and all enhancing the beverage: a thin rimmed crystal

wine glass with a perfectly weighted stem that feels sexy in your

fingertips, a coffee mug that your kid made in ceramics glass, a

stunningly crisp martini glass, a gold rimmed goblet, a tiny green

cut-glass juice glass, a hand blown artsy set of rocks glasses that

you bought on vacation and the perfect Coca-Cola shaped soda glass

styled with ice cubes and a straw (these glasses can also serve as ice

cream soda vessels when filled with Crystal Club Birch Beer and a

scoop of Bryers’ vanilla).

Holiday glassware - definitely another Ode - is not to be relegated.

The Christmas glasses that come out once a year and ceremoniously host

the season's delight: eggnog, with fresh nutmeg grated to order. We

need you on that wall!

We live in a time of wellness thinking. We read about optimizing our

time, prioritizing our personal happiness, cleansing our intestinal

tracts, getting rid of clutter, eating seeds, pomegranate and arugula,

and finding joy in washing the dishes.

We make choices to optimize our every experience.  My choice of

glassware is a choice for joy.

Open the cupboard containing coffee mugs or review the troops you have

hung on display hooks and there is meaning in each option: shape,

style, faded sayings, cups and saucers, metal thermals with lids,

gifts, school spirit impulse buys, glass mugs for fancy coffee drinks,

and the dominant breed in the ever expanding coffee mug genus, “where

the hell did this come from?”

So, to live a good life, as Socrates and I believe in living, smelling

the coffee brewing, shaking up an icy Cosmo after work, or pulling the

iced tea pitcher from the fridge on a summer afternoon begets the next

important choice.  Inhale and ponder…leaded crystal or the Flinstone’s

jelly jar?