THE TEAPOT

It’s old, that’s for sure. Old silver.

I don’t know how old and where it comes from.

Maybe it belonged to your mother or grandmother

who are now no more. And you are no more.

It stands on the kitchen table, in the sea jumble of it

like a lighthouse on its rock in a sea storm.

I unearthed it one day when my small one broke,

I unearthed it from down under in that huge

cabin of a cupboard, the hoard house you left me.

It looks regal to me, a silver acorn on the lid top

in its rind like a pedestal, like those on gravel paths

in the mountains among pine needles and dirt,

like one of the many thoughts scattered in the world

we keep treading on.

 

My morning tea.

I like brewing in it.

I love starting my day with it,

as if feeling the swaddle of history,

at once bathed in my memory of you.

Oh, the handle. It gets so hot

I always need something to cover it,

a napkin, my own sweater even,

not to get scalded when I pour.

 

I am gazing at it now and breakfast is over,

it looks alone and great, undefeated I dare say.

I gaze at the darker spots on its metal, a sky

that will outlive me.

Nothing really can be grasped of the soul

but it sings, silently, like on this silver

and sits, while we just pass, on its own sea.