How to Make Tea
It could be
how to make tea means
paying attention
to water, to leaf, to cup.
In the Chinese way, we use
a guywan, a covered cup
filled with
beautiful leaves, spring water
heated to
just the right temperature
poured in circles
to saturate each leaf.
After steeping
at just enough time,
the brewed tea is poured
into waiting cups for a taste,
delicate, ambrosial,
a scent like sweet jasmine
or caramel
or fresh mown hay
a taste surprising
no matter how often
tea is made.
Mitzvah Man
He’s never told me, I love you. To him,
love is a word fraught with pain - - a word
parents used to justify familial
abuse -- not tenderness, deep connection;
certainly, never, trust. He performs daily
mitzvahs -- good deeds -- picks up litter, mulches
roses in the city garden, heirloom
beauties whose scent keeps him calm; buys water
for the mailman and the UPS guy,
fancy fruit ones to boot; brings lunch for his
bike shop friend then inflates thirty tires in
one day to repay kindnesses. You know
how I feel, he says, you don’t need words, but
know this, I thank you, I thank the gods for you!
DIANA ROSEN
DIANA ROSEN is an essayist, poet, and flash writer whose hybrid first full-length book, HIGH STAKES & EXPECTATIONS, is from thetinypublisher.com Her work appears in Rattle, Tiferet Journal, As It Ought to be Magazine among others in the U.K., Australia, India, and Canada and the U.S. She lives and works as a content provider on food and beverage in Los Angeles where her "backyard" is the largest urban greenspace in the country, Griffith Park. To read more of her work, please visit authory.com/dianarosen
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