A Cup of Winter Tea

Steaming cup in hand, I shiver outdoors
as the moon freezes
in a cloud of mist and sequin stars
not even northern breezes
can penetrate the chill from Earth to Mars
I know that under the snow
plants sprout and bulbs are ready to unfold
and the tea I made half an hour ago
is stone cold

Kim M. Russell, 20th January 2021

3,013 Moon Cup Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images

My response to Poets and Storytellers United Weekly Scribblings #53 Beautiful Words

This Wednesday, Rommy has given us further insight into the Japanese tea ceremony, in which, she tells us, it is customary to give your tools special poetic names, and part of the ceremony usually includes sharing the names of any special objects with your guests. The tea scoop used should have a name that reflects the season or time of year.

For this week’s prompt, she has selected a few poetic names from Bruce Hamana Sosei’s book, 100 Beautiful Words in The Way of Tea. Rommy invites us to pick the English version of one (or more) to shape our words around. I chose Shitamoe – plants sprouting under last year’s dried grass or under the snow and Tsuki-koru – the moon freezes.

31 thoughts on “A Cup of Winter Tea”

  3. I’ve lost a couple of cups of hot tea to time spent musing. It’s good that we have the ability to remember that time moves in cycles when the small bits of comfort we seek aren’t quite up to the job of warming us fully.

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  11. I like your idea of “winter tea,” that term is do very rich, I see warmth after playing on the snow and ending up with a snowman and some down hill sledding.
    Like we have snow!! But I grew up with it and also in New Hampshire for three winters before coming here to the Houston are.
    ..

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