Dance of the Cafeteros, a Poem by Russell Willis

Far above the level of the sea
  an Axis of Coffee straddles
  the mountains of Columbia

For the cafeteros there is but
  one centuries-old constant:
  “there is always coffee”

But in this age
  technology supplants
  the marriage of
  human and soil,
  hands and limbs,
  brains and beans.

The chase is on;

The chase to hold on
  to the soil as it washes
  off the mountains

The chase up the mountain,
  ever higher,
  chasing the temperatures
  where coffee trees
  thrive as lower altitudes
  get warmer,
  ever warmer.

This dance between
  human and natural –
  an ancient dance

The dance cafeteros
 learned from their
 abuelos y abuelas

The dance humans
  had learned to do
  with grace and finesse
  and not a little bit of wisdom.

But not always;
  sometimes heavy-handed
  forgetting to dance.

Choosing, instead,
  to simply use.

All the while,
  the cafeteros push their hopes
  and plantations
  up the mountains
  so that it may
  still be true
  in their world:
  “there is always coffee”

Ethicist, online education entrepreneur, and pastor, Russell Willis emerged as a poet in 2019. Since then he has been profiled in THE POET Magazine and published in twenty-eight online and print journals (including the Ekstasis Review and As Above So Below) and seventeen anthologies. Russell grew up in and around Texas, was vocationally scattered throughout the Southwest and Great Plains for many years, and is now settled in Vermont with his wife, Dawn.