Sit
Stay
Fight out a battle no one ever wins
Lose young years you’ll not get back
Give
Grovel
Hope the other’s heart will hear
Find months of lessons learned
Be
Banter
Bargain — if you must — but make joy
Allow these precious days
Every angry scream
In those Illinois Toll lanes
Echoes in my heart
Original Thought Credit: “If people wanted you to write warmly of them, they should’ve behaved better.”
— Anne Lamott
Ceremony wouldn’t be
Proud of how I took my tea
Gulping gasping grasping
Reading leaves in light of the dark
Sanctuary stolen by twilight’s time
Beggar-made
Exhaustion knows no end
No, friend — never befriend
The enemy
The proof — look at me
Taking tea
Desperate degraded dying
The decades defaulting me
Standing on ceremony
Cooperation
on occasion
there was, I recall
With attention
— dare I mention —
to the most primal instinct of all
But love
what of love
thusly, here the poem ends
For one cannot
and one ought not
use, abuse, and pretend
Because broken hearts
It is a new cup, a blessedly empty cup, staring at me
I thought I knew no thirst
There you stand, eyes upon me too
Teacher, mentor, friend
In full passion
Larger than life’s lessons, thus far
Red-hot tea kettle in one hand
Abundance in the other
And I, with great thirst, indeed, am ready to receive
I’ll know you because
We drink from the same common-ground cup
Though we take our fair-trade tea differently
I’ll invite you, you’ll invite me
To some talking-with somewhere
At the table there’ll be all the stories
All the damn fine stories
The world ought to have wondered about
And with what wonder, they’ll raise their cups and clink and think
Grateful now, for our tales
Thank-filled, for the truth now
Not wanting the ado anymore
I will fade away
And leave you to take your tea
You need not worry
I’ll dare tell you how it feels
Feet kicked up
The late-afternoon sun coming at me
And all is silent since some tree somewhere took down a power line
I couldn’t be more pleased
If there’ll be no hot water for my tea tonight
Candlelight and the hope of tomorrow morning’s sun
Dampens any fear I have
Philosophically speaking
An alert cat and my stupid sense of hope
Along with a spirit-sister’s charge
Finds me feeling
Phenomenal
You know to whom we belong
Love
I’ll never need gently lift your chin
For to remind you
How busy our eyes
What import our gathering
Why time stands still
LisaRosier.com 