[katepoet]

This one also won something... and is about friends. What tea are you?

Tea and the Women I've Known
With thanks to Celestial Seasonings for the teas that have accompanied us through college, careers, marriages, and children, and into these reflective days.

Annie was Sleepytime, chamomile, resting her legs on the cushioned window seat after spending hours in her garden early each day before the summer heat arose. She sipped her soothing tea under the fronds of the potted palm; shade from the noonday swelter.

Monica was Tuscany Orange Spice, the warm scent and feel of the earthy soil from which sturdy green sunflower stalks shoot up, brown and golden flowers following the sun.

Constance, a Red Zinger, laughter bubbling up from within, a smile, a wry grin; she was the joy of the springtime warbler taking flight.

Phoebe, oh, Phoebe, like Golden Honey Darjeeling, black tea for intelligence deep, orange peel for zing, and honey for the complex sweetness of clover mixed with a multitude of fruity nectars.

Lydia? Marrakesh Express, licorice, cardamom, anise, full of surprises, always ready to travel to new latitudes, skiing down the world's mountains with passion.

Isabelle, strong and able, Morning Thunder, fiery black tea with the constant strength of Yerba Mat?, tuning her motorcycle, bursting through the Michigan wilderness like a she-bear braving the storm.

Piper, who, like a wisteria in the woods, is strong and lithe and only in springtime wears a constellation of trailing lavender blooms. She is Harvest Apple Spice, plucking the apple straight from the tree in her own orchard.

And I, sometimes I am Peppermint, bright, full of cheer, and sometimes I am Devonshire English Breakfast, British, tasting the flavor of words as they roll off my tongue, and sometimes I am a little bit of all of these teas, all of these women I have known, gathering around our kitchen tables or on our porches decked with hanging plants, sipping tea and friendship in the morning sun.

Katherine A Minden copyright 2005