My grandsons ask for tea ~

Tea, GiGi! Tea!

They like it English fashion:

hot black tea with milk & sugar

served in a Beatrix Potter cup.

The way my own two sons drank it

the way I drank it as a young woman

long ago & far away. Before

there were rabbit cups & saucers.

And strong mint tea, served

in ornate glasses, gilded traceries

along the rims. Syrupy with sugar,

held carefully between fingertips.

And cool herbal teas, tall & frosty

with condensation, sweet with fruit

& Demerara, stirred with my mother’s

sterling spoon, on my grandmother’s saucer.

Tea’s steam rising    curling

winding around us like a daisy chain

holding us together. Memory

blossoming along its links.