Through the Window at the Vet's

Until now I have not noticed the two elms.

A dream of leaping into sunshine
from practiced hands and human chirps
each cat in his bower of purple leaves.

Porous

left to right: thin matcha, thick matcha

There are teas that I drink at home, those that I drink at work.  An overlap exists, the boundary being porous.  A penchant for Japanese greens and Taiwanese oolongs in the domestic space, a leaning towards the eclectic at work (Lung Ching and genmaicha are staples).

Home lends itself to the measured whisking of matcha, the liquor lapping languidly on the sides of an earthen bowl.  Or the faint green bits of leaves remaining on the bottom of a just-emptied cup of gyokuro, a stray orb of sunlight embracing them.

Tea at work can be a slapdash affair.  I heat water in a microwave still redolent of someone's pot pie.  I drink tea at my desk in front of a blinking computer screen, the inundated inbox never faraway.

But I can turn away from the screen, in company or alone, noting the wisp of steam rising from my cup.

Gyokuro

In a fleeting moment before
the graying birds take flight
I taste the shades of its essence
and wait to find
what has never left.

Drinking Jasmine Pearls from a Paper Cup

an antidote

Lost in the pulp of impermanence
I see limp tendrils.

They glisten as rosettes
perfumed by blossoms
only in my reveries.

A dream of a vessel
possessing no Self
receiving and giving
our true nature.