Super-sized Series

 Tea Time

 

 

 

Advice From a Poet Father by Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca

It's quite simple, really,
So my poet father said:
Scald the China tea kettle,
Swirl hot water inside.
Toss the water out.
Place tea leaves, fragrant, waiting,
In the scalded teapot.
Pour boiling water over,
Cover with a cozy, simple or fancy.
Leave it to rest
In reverie
In calming solitude for ten minutes.
Allow it to achieve magical fusion.

Meanwhile,
Enter the adjoining room,
Pen in hand,
Craft a poem,
Let words blend like steeping tea.

Return to the brewed serenity,
Sip at the kitchen table or
Stand by the spiral staircase,
Watch the cat, lazily sunning.
Gaze at the lemon tree,
Its leaves lush, green and yellow,
In the garden below.

Tea tastes better this way.
Return to your poem.
Revise line by line.
Tea and poetry, hand in hand,
Flavors mingling with imagery.

Now you have a good poem.
Patience, Poetry, Pottery—
Fine companions, indeed.

 

 

Adrak ki Chai (Ginger Tea) by Abha Das Sarma

Whistling train
vanquishes the night mist-
all of a sudden
there is light in the east
tearing past my window.

I totter to the kitchen,
hurry into washing the earth off
roots of ginger freshly bought
at a neighborhood market-
an extra inch in bargain.

Making of Adrak ki Chai begins
with grating, slicing thin or just pounding
of this earthy gem. Simmering the inner yellow
in water until whirling, rising like a swimmer
caught in current. Until the aroma fills the air.

Adding the tea leaves, a little crème
and a hint of sugar-
then waiting for the magic, a color of gold,
warmth and hope, brewed and sieved Adrak ki Chai
in my cupped hands.

I climb the stairs to large trees of palm,
leaves leaning over my roof,
a kite with spread wings, still buoyant from flight-
claws flipping fate of an unwilling prey,
uncertainty of another day.

The rising steam from the surface of

the tea,
the only witness to my wet warm cheeks

First appeared in Silver Birch Press  

 

 

SWEET TEA by Lori Levy

Dirt under his nails, cigarette
between his stubby fingers:
hands that know the feel of a cow’s udder.
I watch those hands, my brother-in-law’s,
busy now under bloated bellies,
fitting teats to the cups of milking machines.
Beyond him, in the Negev Desert, time is a camel
standing still under a hot sun, or a Bedouin
on his haunches, sipping sweet tea in his tent.
Over the black and white backs of cows,
I ask my brother-in-law, pacing in high rubber boots,
“Wouldn’t you like to be a Bedouin for a while?”
My words drown in a sea of moos.
“Bedouin?”  he shouts.  “What?”  He smiles, but doesn’t stop.
He’s got cows to usher in.  Milk to deliver.  

 

Sipping Grace by Kelly Sargent

My mother sipped
steeped
tender white tea leaves
from a 24-carat gold-rimmed tea cup
that I bought on holiday.

I wanted royalty
to touch her lips,
still parched from those dusty years
she had languished in The Camp.

When the rim chipped,
she spun it slowly,
and sipped a second cup
from the other side.  

First appeared in One Art: A Journal of Poetry  

 

 

My Grandmother’s Tea Set by Judith Waller Carroll

Here in this wicker chair with its view
of the woods, I sip tea from a delicate cup
and remember the summer I turned thirteen
and took the bus to Idaho from Billings,
my luggage left behind in Butte.

No clothes to wear for days but a trio
of housecoats gaily printed with flowers
or birds, selected from my grandmother’s closet
and belted with a long, bright scarf.

Each afternoon, we sat on the plump sofa
with doilies on the arms and back, Mockingbird
Hill or Catch a Falling Star on the Victrola,
Cadbury biscuits on a milk-white plate,  

a fanciful girl in an oversized kimono
tied with a crimson sash, my deep-bosomed
grandmother with her halo of braids  
pouring tea that came all the way from China
into a cup of soft pink petals, silver along the rim.

From The Consolation of Roses    

 

 

Aunt Tillie’s Silver Tea Set by Jacqueline Jules

“Take it,” Aunt Tillie insisted.
 
We sat side by side, our bare legs
sticking to her plastic-wrapped couch
in that hot apartment on 34th Street.
 
“An heirloom,” Aunt Tillie said,
shoving the ornate tray in our laps.
“To pass down to your children.”
 
Who had absolutely no interest
forty years later, to waste even
a minute with a polishing cloth.
 
So Aunt Tillie’s silver tea set
goes to Goodwill
along with my vintage china.
 
Aunt Tillie had been so sure
generations would treasure
the chance to entertain in elegance.
 
But she spent her life, like I did,
accumulating things that would one day
be dumped for a tax donation.  
 
Unloading my car, I see I am not alone.
So many others my age, discarding
knickknacks we once thought we needed
but now wish to unstick from our skin
like the plastic on Aunt Tillie’s couch.

First appeared on Your Daily Poem

 

Photo by j.lewis of cast iron tea kettle in his father’s cabin. 

sage tea by j.lewis

cowboys drink their coffee mostly black
eat their steak with beans and spuds
sometimes a wild onion for flavor

but when a stomach starts to rumble
there's no reaching for store-bought cures
not when the high desert supplies its own

scrub sage, leaves dried and steeped
in an old cast-iron kettle will do the trick
best remedy ever for belly aches

tastes so bitter going down, he thinks
there's got to be a better way to stop
his guts from misbehaving, when suddenly

they do. they stop right up. cowboy's healed
and ready to ride for days unhindered
by any need for nature stops. miracle drug

as a child, i once complained to grandma
who lovingly supplied me with sage tea
which didn't solve the problem, but did stop me
from ever talking about it again

Copper Teakettle by Cynthia Anderson

Because it was squat, bruised, and dull.
Because the cracked handle was unusable.
Because my mother sent it for my 50th birthday,
with a note explaining it came to her broken.
Because I showed my brother, there at my party,
who announced, Oh, I have one of those.
Because in that instant I knew his was perfect.

Because twelve years later, after my father died,
my brother and I fought on the phone.
Because I said how I felt about mom plying him
with gifts, money, and heirlooms.
Because he claimed he had nothing.
Because a week later he wrote and asked
if I wanted anything he had.
Because, in the dark hours, I remembered
the teakettle.

Because he sent it.
Because we’ve barely spoken since.
Because I gave the bad one to the thrift store.
Because the good one gleams—graceful, complete.

Cinnamon, Licorice and Lemon by Sharon Waller Knutson

As I sip herbal teas
in my senior years,
I am back
in my childhood
home surrounded
by the sweet and spicy
scent of Mama’s
cinnamon rolls,
ginger cookies
and spice cake
from Betty Crocker’s
cookbook
to the steaming hot
oven to melting
in our mouths.

Chewing
the black licorice
from the counter
of the country store
in Columbus
and sucking
the juice
from the lemons
and tangerines
we bought
at the farmer’s market.

Chai Tea by Mary Ellen Talley

I’ve forgotten what it was I didn’t
            understand.
The paper of the poem
and the scent of ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, and cloves
            allowed me
to cry past the gravel pit
            in my mouth.

All thoughts (hopes)
are justified left.

Thank you to the blue cup on the ceramic coaster
with decoupaged faces of my grandchildren.

The heat kicks on
        with furnace vocal om
        until temperatures
        inside (me)
        rise.

Morning Thunder by Joe Cottonwood

She asks about my nutdriver,
voltmeter, needlenose plier.
She, the orchid; I, the stake.
What is it about a man with tools?
She’s undressing my soul in her mind
which I hope is prettier than my body.
She, the student; I, the handyman
in an apartment near the Stanford campus
as I replace the baseboard heater.

An offer of tea, Morning Thunder she calls it.
Two mugs. Our eyes meet
over swirling steam of caffeine.
She’s intrigued.
I’m an archeological specimen,
carbon-dated by the golden
hippie-style band on my finger.
With designer hair and boutique denim
she’s clothed in casual wealth. A coed
with father issues could be good luck
for a guy with tools and a pickup truck
but let’s protect the child
seeming grown, seeming wild.
The new heater has not a scratch, not a scuff.
“Job done,” I say.
That’s enough.

Published in Mad Swirl    

 

 

Could’a Would’a Should’a by Marilyn Zelke Windau

Long time ago I traveled
away from you, not toward.
Had I, life would have been different:
career, children, morning tea.

Your mother warned you.
You didn’t listen.
Earl Grey is not the same
as English breakfast,
not the same without milk
and sugar.

You got your sweetener elsewhere,
in multiple spoonfuls.

Too late now to sweeten
a cuppa.

 

Ode to a Tea Bag by Jayne Jaudon Ferrar

It is the bleakest of mornings
as I crawl from my bed,
red-eyed, rumpled, and decidedly unrefreshed.
My right hip seems not to be working,
my left shoulder has a kink,
already a sinus headache is brewing
and, oh, Lord! — look at my hair!
Limping, snuffling, creaking, moaning,
I make my way toward the kitchen . . .
grope about in the dark for the kettle,
grope about in the dark for the tea tin,
turn on the stove, feel my spirits rise up
as I reach for a cup in needy anticipation.
Thank you, God, for the glorious gift of Earl Grey.
 
From She of the Rib (CRM Books, 2006).

Journey of Tea by Tina Hacker

One flight of stairs,
fourteen steps but an Everest
when I’m carrying a cup of steaming tea.

Think yoga, think elevator music,
think poker to keep hands and feet
steady, stable. Watch the dark
surface sway up one side,
then the other, hips
of liquid dancing a tango,
hot but with passion
kept simmering,
void of showy moves
that might goad drops
over the rim.

Last stair in sight,
up and onto the landing.
Small sip of victory.

Transported by Alarie Tennille

Why am I here? Sitting in a smoky café who knows where, speaking
a language I don’t recognize? Why do regulars recognize me? Maybe
we’re speaking Hungarian or some Slavic tongue, since I can hear no English cognates escaping my mouth. Must be a lucid dream…
hallucination…alternate universe?

I guess from my wool suit and wasp waistline that I’m young again
and technically haven’t been born yet. The goulash and wine make
me content to relax and let things sort themselves out. Another sip,
but now it’s tea.

I blink at the lamp, bright enough for interrogation. Back in my reading
chair. The tea’s steam tells me I didn’t slip away for long. Now I remember. I opened a new tea assortment tonight, a gift from a friend. At least
that’s what the shipping label said. What’s in this stuff? I drink the cup
down yet remain right here with the cats.

Will a different tea take me back there? Someone, maybe many
someones, depend on me. That last man who entered the café, the one
who tipped his tartan cap at me – I know he’s expecting an urgent
message. I pull apart the carton of teas, searching for some clue.

Montreal Tea by Laurie Byro

I tore apart the leaves of my journal, scattered poems into the wild air.  They will say I made the whole thing up: the river and its invitation, the girl they never found. The crone who handed

me the cracked cup swore it was my fate.  Sirens in the harbor dissolved into kelp while at night waves lulled us to bed.  Outside our window, horses strained as snowflakes scrambled for cover.

It may have snowed all night.  Mothy angels drifted between the buildings of the city.  Sidewalks seemed feathered as footprints leading somewhere else hurried to slush. Women, only slightly pure, parted their moist

mouths, licked the red gash of setting sun.  It sank down upon that day’s lessons.  I was never afraid of growing old without you.  Suzanne became famous from scavenging for men lost by the river. I fed you tea

and oranges even when we stopped being poor.
Every slice that dripped off my chin made me blush like an immoral god. The last time I saw you, snowflakes settled in my hair like a flock of doves.