A Poem for a Thursday #53

Photo by Nashad Abdu on Unsplash

I do love tea. It is comforting, refreshing, soothing, stress-relieving, and just plain delicious. In this poem, the love for tea and the love for a person are combined.

I like pouring your tea, lifting
the heavy pot, and tipping it up,
so the fragrant liquid streams in your china cup.


Or when you’re away, or at work,
I like to think of your cupped hands as you sip,
as you sip, of the faint half-smile of your lips.


I like the questions – sugar? – milk? –
and the answers I don’t know by heart, yet
for I see your soul in your eyes and I forget.


Jasmine, Gunpowder, Assam, Earl Grey, Ceylon,
I love tea’s names. Which tea would you like? I say
but it’s any tea for you, please, any time of day,


as the women harvest the slopes
for the sweetest leaves, on Mount Wu-Yi,
and I am your lover, smitten, straining your tea. 


Tea
Carol AnnDuffy