Poems from the Past: Café Contemplation

May, 1980, Eugene, OR

The story behind this poem

When I first arrived in Eugene in 1979, I needed work to help with living expenses while attending Lane Community College.

As a major university town (UofO), Eugene catered to a huge student population. Many older Victorian-style houses in the surrounding neighborhoods had been converted to rooming houses. I secured a basement room in a house on Mill Street.

There was a gridwork of alleys between all the major streets. Directly across the alley behind where I lived was the High Street Coffee Gallery, a unique café and art gallery combination on the first floor of an old Victorian house. I began working there in the Spring of 1980.

I spent a lot of time there either working or studying. With no laptops, tablets/iPads, or smartphones back then, all of my early writing was done in notebooks while downing copious amounts of espresso, lattés, and similar drinks.

Each month a local, artist’s work was displayed. Most of it reflected the New Age culture that was unique to Eugene.

The following poem came to me as I sat and observed the people who frequented the coffee gallery. Some were in groups of two or three. Most were alone.

It struck me that here we were, alone (and lonely?) in a room full of people.

Most, like me, had come to Eugene seeking some sort of answer to life. But for reasons I wrote about in chapter five, Disillusioned of Coming Home: A Sailor’s Story, few actually talked to anyone else about their personal pursuits:

The whole culture was centered around the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment.

As time went on, though, I began to understand that the quest was all important. Actually finding the truth was looked upon in an almost heretical way.

The thinking was, that since we are “evolving” and “progressing” spiritual beings, we can never actually arrive at some final state of enlightenment. So, to say that we had done so would be deemed the height of arrogance.

And so it was, that most of the people I knew continued in this state of pursuit, flitting like butterflies from one thing to another, always in constant fluctuation.

This poem reflects that scene & where I was in my personal quest for answers at that time.

Café Contemplation

Separately, we all sat together.

What do you know, that I don’t?

Our lives are different paths from the same beginning,

Traveling towards the same end.

A musician’s words ask,

“Where are we now?”

But, it does not matter.

For the gloom in one face,

Only shows a more difficult road.

While a gleam in the eyes of another,

Has been lighted by harmony’s path.

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