Tea

 

TEA

 

In tea leaves

I read my fortune,

journeys past

and yet to come.

 

Orange pekoe

was my grandmother,

dawn leavetakings

from Flagstaff, trains passing

in the lonely hours of the night.

Against those departures,

a comforting circle

of yellow lamplight, tea,

which reassures me even now.

Lapsang Souchong, my father 

called Old Indian Moccasins, 

smoky and exotic

as the Old Prospector’s Shop

where in my teens I bought

crepe paper flowers 

from somewhere in Mexico,

holding within themselves, 

their folds, whispered and deep,

a whiff of copper, the bewitching 

smell of unaccustomed distances.

In Hawaii we learned 

the almost sacramental genmai cha, 

green tea with toasted rice, 

shared from a sly-lipped pot

with our kupuna friends

in the big airy dining room 

of the rustic hotel near Captain Cook, 

with wooden walls and floors 

and those friendly old screens 

welcoming ocean breezes in.

 

At Tassajara, in its far valley,

peppermint tea, delicious, iced,

after waking at dawn to running bells, 

rising to walk down soft footpaths

to the bath house, still half asleep, 

and sit in one of the hot springs

under a bough of pine, moon fading

to a watermark as daylight takes the sky,

while others chant in the zendo 

and in the kitchen bread is baking—

seeded, rounded, full.

 

At the long-vanished teahouse

on one of old Palo Alto’s downtown streets,

in a warren of galleries and bookstores

and the futon shop, Earl Gray 

and finger sandwiches, its fragrance

telling of the past and things to come.

A moment of quiet reflection before 

stepping out the door again to go on 

shopping for my best friend’s wedding dress.

And finally,

at The Teahouse on Canyon Road,

back home, yet not, never again,

plum cinnamon or pepper berry—

fragrant teas, far too many to try.

For I am out of time.

Mornings, walking the labyrinth

barefoot, time and again, before

heading on to the hospital.

Needing the tea for the solace 

it’s always offered in the past. 

Having this time to pour it 

out myself, drink it alone.

 

 

images:  

Pierre Bonnard, Breakfast or Lunch

WWII teacup, Etsy

Japanese teapot, Oitomi

A Reader Lives teacup, saucer, and spoon