My Tea Ceremony

Oh, you bowls, don’t tell the others I drink
my liquor out of you. I want a feeling of beauty
to surround the plainest facts of my life.
Sitting on my bare heels, making a formal bow,
I want an atmosphere of gentleness to drive
out the squalor of everyday existence
in a little passive house surrounded
by black rocks and gray gravel.
Half-cerebral, half-sensual, I want to hear
the water murmuring in the kettle
and to see the spider, green as jade,
remaining aloof on the wall.
Heart, unquiet thing,
I don’t want to hate anymore. I want love
to trample through my arms again.

Henri Cole (2023)