Storm in a Tea Cup

Ella, at Poets United, has done it again. Wacky, last week and Weird this week. And she is brewing tea and making us feel envious of her cups. So, to be weird, I have run away with a plastic cup to the marketplace of ideas and here we have boiled chai. Please mind your lips. Weird is the codename.

~

 

It was a strong mixture of burnt tea leaves and water

From a cooking pot, steamy and lit,

Its lid chattered, unable to contain the heat

The boiling temperatures, exceeded beyond measure,

Could not relent

With a vengeance, perhaps to atone the cold outside

The lit firewood crackled, knotting up with fiery determination

Chai, as we call it here,

Would be served in plastic cups

Dexteriously handled by frozen hands

The steam whistling a warning

By the warm moist it exclaims on the parched lips

Ella, those expensive cups I have seen them

Though broken, dumped by the fences of my tajiri

By their reflection in the sun, I was reminded of

Fragility, the ephemeral being we all are

Not that I don’t have those cups, no no,

I have them and I store them in the cup boards

Reserved for my guests

My family could do with plastic cups anyway

Sometimes I think life is about chai

The temperature might be intimidating

But soon, its heat is lost

Who ever came up with the phrase

‘Storm in a tea-cup’ had me in mind

Now, I think I need to send him a memo

And ask if he meant my plastic cup or Ella’s