Coffee Crazed! There are many people in this world that are coffee fanatics.   I, Brandy Michelle O’Banion, am one of those crazed ‘I need joe’ people!   It all started with that coffee bean smell in the morning air.   It was enticing and invigorating.   It captured me and wouldn’t let me go.   It had a hold on me, like a bridle on a chestnut mare.   So, I decided to take a sip from my dad’s mug one sunshine morn.   He drank his coffee straight black.   The taste slid down my throat.   I thought, “How do you drink this blackened liquid?”   Little did I know, I would get roped, like a spotted calf!   Coffee grows on you day by day.   1 cup, 2 cups, 3 cups, 4!   As I get older, the more I enjoy and need this sly drink.   It crept in and now coaches my adult life.   Pour, add creamer, drink, and repeat!   I look forward to the sleepy dawns, just to grab a coffee cup and pour ‘hello beautiful’! ...

Night Air   I live in Gray, Louisiana where the gators and critters roam.   The black nights here are mild and calm.   Around 11:00 each evening, I take sweet Shiloh and the Irishman, Brody outside.   I stand and wait in the stillness.   The trees seem to sleep on their pillows of leaves.   Pacing feet take to mending den.   Rocking chairs have stopped swaying and chimes lightly ting in the air.   Houses hibernate in the twilight biding for shimmering sun.   New day, will you bring love, happiness, and goofy fun?   Dewy day, whatever comes, strength from God, I do pray.   I look up to the white freckled sky; God, what majesty and peace you bestow on the earth.   The stars twinkle-pinkle in the blackness, charming my eyes.   The moon beams against the velvet clouds, the lantern of the bayou land.   My mind sits on the Big Dipper and rests by Orion’s Belt.   I drift to the Northern star and heavenl...