Equinox
by Maya Phillips
For our limited-edition First Light Single Origin, we partnered with the Poetry Society of America to commission a poem by Maya Phillips. We had the good fortune to meet Maya years ago when she read at our Gramercy Cafe opening in NY. Below is Equinox, her original poem written for the welcome arrival of spring and the inaugural release of our Spring Poetry Coffees.
Equinox
With a brisk wind I feel the sharp scowl of the season
as it stalks out the door; on another coast a friendly sunset
stretches across the bare belly of the ocean—do you often think of it,
how at any moment somewhere is a different sky and a faraway
pair of eyes watching … never mind. The radiator’s heat writhes
in the iron coils whispering hushhh to my bedside; outdoors
the tree branches, still unclothed, indiscreetly shake at one another like teens
at a winter social. It’s too cold for these kinds of flirtations
but so what? Mine’s a chill that says violence but you,
darling stranger, sing like the warm inside of a kiss.
When have we ever minded the weather?
About the Poet
Maya Phillips is a critic-at-large for The New York Times where she writes about theater, movies, TV, books, and nerd culture. She is the author of the poetry collection Erou (Four Way Books, 2019), which was a finalist for the PEN Open Book Award and winner of the 2019 Balcones Poetry Prize and 2020 Poetry by the Sea book award. Her second book, NERD: On Navigating Heroes, Magic, and Fandom in the 21st Century, is forthcoming in summer 2022 by Atria Books. Her poetry has appeared in American Literary Review, The Rumpus, The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine, among others, and her arts & entertainment journalism has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vulture, Mashable, Slate, The Week, American Theatre, and more. She is the recipient of a Hodder Grant from Princeton’s Lewis Center for the Arts.
About the Coffee
We love single origins—coffees that come from one producer or one region—for their power to expand our very idea of what coffee can taste like. Each single origin is a celebration of place. We roast single origins with a lighter touch to let the nuanced differences in flavor, acidity, and finish shine.
This honeyed, balanced Guatemalan single origin comes from one of our oldest producer relationships, the cooperative La Voz Que Clama en el Desierto. Much like Maya Phillips’s poem, Equinox, which evokes hibernation in anticipation of spring, this uplifting coffee is fit for a season of change, when the fanfare of greenery and blossoms gives us the chance to see the world anew.