A Moment’s Devotion
Carol Ann Duffy, British born 1955,
British Poet Laureate, 2009-2019
TEA
I like pouring your tea, lifting
the heavy pot, and tipping it up,
so the fragrant liquid streams in your china cup.
Breakfast at Malibu, Sunday, 1989, oil on canvas, and detail. David Hockney, British born 1937.
Private collection on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017/18
A view from a house on the Malibu beach which the artist bought in the late 1980s
Or when you’re away, or at work,
I like to think of your cupped hands as you sip,
as you sip, of the faint half-smile of your lips.
Tea Time (Woman with a Teaspoon), 1911, oil on cardboard. Jean Metzinger, 1883-1956, French. Philadelphia Art Museum
I like the questions – sugar? – milk? –
Cream pitcher of press glass made between 1883/84 – 1900 by Challinor Taylor and Company, 1886-1900; Tarentum, Pennsylvania. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
and the answers I don’t know by heart, yet,
for I see your soul in your eyes, and I forget.
As above
Jasmine, Gunpowder, Assam, Earl Grey, Ceylon,
I love tea’s names. Which tea would you like? I say
but it’s any tea for you, please, any time of day
House of Tea, S. 4th Street, Philadelphia. It has been more than 25 years of delicious teas.
as the women harvest the slopes
for sweetest leaves on Mount Wu-Yi and I am your lover, smitten, straining your tea.
Still Life, Inauguration Day, 2017, oil on wood.
Tilda Mann, American born 1957. Exhibited in 2017 at the Woodmere Museum of Art, Philadelphia
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Quite, quite delightful. I shall never think of tea in the old/same way again!