American Life in Poetry: Column 83
a column to be shared by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate
Green Tea
There is this tea
I have sometimes,
Pan Long Ying Hao,
so tightly curled
it looks like tiny roots
gnarled, a greenish-gray.
When it steeps, it opens
the way you woke this morning,
stretching, your hands behind
your head, back arched,
toes pointing, a smile steeped
in ceremony, a celebration,
the reaching of your arms.
Dale Ritterbusch
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Reprinted from Far From the Temple of Heaven, Black Moss Press, April 2006, by permission of the author. Copyright © 2005 by Dale Ritterbusch.
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