Poetry: Tea

Tea
by 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.


[Carol Ann Duffy is one of my favourite poet. I discovered her one day while flipping through Gary Geddes' anthology of 20th Century poems. The miracle of finding gems in your textbook!

I fell in love with the simplicity and the clarity of her words. Imagine my surprise when I found out Jeanette Winterson is also one of her admirers.

All paths lead to the centre.

Right now I'm craving for a cuppa hot English tea]