As a child, watching my mother cool the hot tea by pouring it
from one cup into another, then from the filled cup back
into the emptied one, and then again again,
the afternoon-or-evening-coloured liquid unfurling downward
like a ribbon from a spool, the sound of its unreeling
an ascending-then-descending octave ending in a burbling,
then a clustering of bubbles, and the vapour wisping
from and to my mother’s hands rotating, gliding up, down, changing places,
partners in an intricate and courtly dance, separating finally
when she passed me the cup, the porcelain at just the hotness
to allow my other hand to support it at the rim as i raise to my lips
the tea – kannèl, Red Rose, lowanjèt – hotter than the cup, just
to the right sweetened heat for a child learning to sip, absorb
the ways of family, of neighbourhood, of town, of country, a child
wondering two generations later when precisely this ritual
became unnecessary, wondering how i learned to drink tea hot
and wondering whether the hands of any of us still dance
the caring choreography of this domestic rite,
wondering if they do not, why …
..................................................................................................................
kannèl – cinnamon; referring here to cinnamon bark tea
lowanjèt – citrus leaf tea, made from the leaves of orange, grapefruit, lime …
This poem was first published by Peepel Tree Press in Wordplanting (2019) by Kendel Hippolyte.