Transactions with Beauty

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The Song of Lunch

Whenever I go out for lunch I can't help thinking about the movie (which is based on a poem by Christopher Reid) titled, The Song of Lunch with Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson. 

Chloe and I went to Cafe Linnea to celebrate her first week back this summer. That's cause enough, right? 

I had the potpie, and she had scrambled eggs with bacon. 

Nerds that we are, she drew various people, and I took photos of stuff. As we do. We also took photos of each other. 

Lunch can be a creative time. I think of Frank O'Hara's lunch poems, and all the other poems about lunch

Every lunch is an opportunity for poetry, I think. Have you ever had lunch in Grand Central Station? Amy Lowell's poem begins:

Thompson’s Lunch Room—Grand Central Station

Wax-white— 
Floor, ceiling, walls.   
Ivory shadows
Over the pavement   
Polished to cream surfaces
By constant sweeping. 
The big room is coloured like the petals
Of a great magnolia,   
And has a patina   
Of flower bloom
Which makes it shine dimly
Under the electric lamps. 
Chairs are ranged in rows
Like sepia seeds   
Waiting fulfilment.

{continue reading the poem here}

Chloe had dessert, and I had coffee...

And afterwards we bought doughnuts from the shop around the corner. Because it's silly to pass by a delicious doughnut store and not buy some. 

I keep thinking it would be fun to do a series titled, lunch with poets, and do short interviews, or something, or have a poet talk about their favourite poems over lunch, and then share them here. As usual, there's no shortage of ideas, just time.