by the cherry blossom tree

Finally, a very straightforward poem about tea. There's so much tea in literature--George Orwell's essay, for instance, can be easily found anywhere, or Proust's little bits about tea--but I haven't seen anything so romantically linked to tea like this. And this is all thanks to Jeanette Winterson's website, where the author posts a lot of very good poems by her favorite poets. Check it out sometime.

Anyway, the poem.


Tea
Carol Ann Duffy

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.