Hello, Poetry Friend
John, my love of thirty-five years, does not like tea. In more than three decades of shared life he has never attempted to buy me tea, perhaps because he doesn’t want to buy the wrong kind. (Dearest, there is no wrong kind.) But we do share a love of iced tea. In huge cups.
When we sit down at a restaurant, we both order unsweet tea, and he hands over his lemon or lime wedge without a glance. If he happens to forget and I take it out of his glass, he doesn’t even notice. This is old love: take my lemons, take my limes. The good waiters not only refill our tea but also bring more wedges. I am happiest when my iced tea is swimming in citrus.
When we go to a football game or other sporting event, whoever goes to the concession stand first knows to buy iced tea. When we take a road trip, we each leave with a roadie filled with iced tea, and we refill from the coolers inside convenience stores along the way. When either of us goes to the grocery store, we know to buy a gallon or two of unsweet Red Diamond. Iced tea is our shared elixir.
We are both people of intense feeling. We literally run hot all the time, keeping fans going year-round and windows open whenever the weather thinks about playing cool. I may write with hot tea, but I love with iced.
When writers speak of love, they usually mention wine, a drink that “alters when it alteration finds.” Because my love does not drink wine, iced tea is our “ever-fixed mark.” Surely Shakespeare was thinking of iced tea when he wrote “Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds.” (No? Are you sure?)
I can’t speak about Shakespeare’s loves, but ours has been shaken. Hard enough to spill our tea. We mop up. We re-pour. Even with all the poetry I read, it has been hard for me to find love poetry that rings my bell. Then I stumbled upon “A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy’s Day” by John Donne. Here’s the stanza that seized my heart.
Oft a flood Have we two wept, and so Drown’d the whole world, us two; oft did we grow To be two chaoses, when we did show Care to be aught else; and often absences Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses. –John Donne
We have been chaoses. We have been carcasses, ground to dust like the iced tea served in restaurants, generally referred to as tea leaf dust. Cheap and strong. Tastes better iced.
Huge cup by huge cup, I am writing my own love poetry.
Perfect Ten
Your hands shouldn’t take up so much space.
Your ring, solid enough to cut stone. Not one
errant cuticle. Penultimate thrill –
when your hands take their time.
When they falter – bliss.
Your hands hold my tears, find my forearm
in the night, reach, coax out sound
Asleep I wait and pray
where all ten fingers, insistent, spread.
–Megan Willome
Happy poeming!
Megan
P.S. Happy almost Anniversary, John
Just ever so delightful.
"This is old love: take my lemons, take my limes."
I enjoyed this post and loved the poem you wrote.