Find A Good Home For My Teas

Find a good home for my teas.

Make sure they will be gladly drunk
by people who will think of me
fondly, warming their hands
around a full mug.

I’ve had love, so much love,
pouring freely through
the dark corners of the labyrinths,

and wearing smooth
the odd-shaped cracks
that made up the mad tea party
I called my life.

I’d like to think some of that
love will come through
between the sips of tea

(maybe a few moments of laughter too)

long past the time
the warmth from it fades.

Photo by Loverna Journey on Unsplash

Song Choice: Earth Song by Harry Bellafonte. I've told the children this is one of the songs I absolutely want played at any sort of funeral they hold for me. 

This poem was created for the prompt given at Poets and Storytellers United, Weekly Scribblings #37: Last Messages.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Advice from an Old Phoenix to a Young One

The first time is always the hardest. You know the story, but you haven’t lived it. You know the weariness but have only dreamed of the release. Perhaps you even doubt your nature. 

This is normal. None of us have much to do with fire until that moment. You know the coolness of water as you drink it. You know the solidity of the earth from every tree that gifted you a branch to perch on. You know the caress of air as it lifts you. To give ourselves over into fire’s arms when you're barely acquainted with it is not easy. And even when you know the lick of the flame, you know it will be nothing less than…ardent. Fire is possessive, wanting to adore your every molecule. Its intentions are wholly unsubtle.  

Perhaps you’ll try to put off that first meeting. Maybe you truly have forgotten yourself, thinking this known heaviness of wing is easier to bear than fire’s passion. I will not be the one to tell you it is easy. But I will tell you that to be a phoenix is to burn. To be otherwise is to be resigned to ever-dulling plumage, a sad old bird hoping to sustain themselves on the idea of someday burning but growing thinner and paler every day they put it off.

Find a good spot for it. I favor a mountain top, where I have a good view of the sun so we can rise together. Above all, decide what is worth burning for. It will still be intense, but I must confess, there’s a special pleasure in it then. That pleasure only grows with time, though I see you don’t believe me. I am not offended. Some things need to be felt to be known.

Maybe someday it will be you encouraging a young one. I hope that you’ll think of me fondly then. And do come see me after it’s through. We will have many things to speak of. 

Photo by Cullan Smith on Unsplash

Song Choice: Firebird's Child by S.J. Tucker

This post was created as a response to the Weekly Scribblings prompt at Poets and Storytellers United.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Liminal Tea

I did not have a bowl of tea under the cherry blossoms on my birthday month in the way I had hoped. This spring’s strangeness outlasted both my birthday and those blooms, going past the scent of summer honeysuckle, and likely to linger after the veins of the last red leaf of autumn are crusted with frost. 

But the peace I find in my practice is also long lasting. Though the fall threatens more strange fruit and bitter harvests, though winter is a specter I can’t yet imagine, my battered mind finds a moment of respite in a space apart, created where the scent of matcha rises when water first meets it, and cradled in the sound of the whisk dancing in the bowl. And even if I cannot pass a bowl of tea to another’s appreciative hand, that rest found between the liminal spaces of foam and pouring water can travel freely for miles, any time to anyone who sets aside a corner of their heart for tea. 

I’ve learned to adapt,
mixing matcha for one. But
I can still share tea
steeped in my heart, an ocean
away, yet linked by spirit.

This was taken on the New Year's tea celebration my tea school holds every year.

It feels like a lifetime ago.

Song Choice: While My Guitar Gently Weeps performed by Prince, Tom Petty, Steve Winwood, Jeff Lynne and Others

Liner Notes for This Groove: This piece was created for the prompt given at Poets and Storytellers United's Weekly Scribblings #35, The Joy of Rest. It was also inspired by a request from my tea teacher. This September Urasenke North America is holding a chado relay, where they invite members from the different tea schools in North America to share images and words about their practice during these socially distanced times. I am a member of Urasenke Philadelphia and it will be our turn to share from the 7th to the 9th. 

By Rommy Cortez-Driks