Blessed are the Coffeemakers – a poem by John Claiborne Isbell

Blessed are the Coffeemakers



Blessed are those who, when they hear about suffering,
	ask a follow-up question instead of changing the subject.

Those who tell a homeless navy vet
	who just wants a little flirting and affirmation

they like sailors. Those who dance before the Lord.
	Blessed is the delivery man –

blessed are the simpletons and the felons,
	the crazy lady haranguing the pedestrians. 

Blessed is the guy with the free flyers.
	Blessed is your neighbor you never talk to.

Blessed are the bus boys and the rush hour drivers,
	the child soldiers. The dead, for their span on Earth is done.

Blessed are the fickle and the incomplete,
the guilty. Blessed are those

who make the coffee in the coffee pot
while others chatter. Blessed are the blind,

the fallen, the foolish.
Blessed are the deaf.
 

John Claiborne Isbell taught French and German for many years in Indiana and Texas after his Ph.D. at Cambridge University. In 1996, he appeared in Who’s Who in the World. He has a new monograph, An Outline of Romanticism in the West, with Open Book Publishers, where it is available to download for free online. His first book of poetry, Allegro, came out in 2018.