Rose Tea

 

Words are like the weather
They can be cozy as cashmere 

Bundled up
The heat from the fire
Melts the mountain chill

Boots packed with ice crunch and squeak

Steam wets my upper lip and 

dews my nose as I breathe 

into my bone china teacup 

with my favorite rose tea-
Swirling a tea bag is the

perfect repetitive movement 

For a fiddler like me

But words, like the weather,
Can be treacherous too
A monsoon in the desert evening
Winds howling, walls heaving
Against a high-pitched squall 

That yearns to pull the 

earth from its roots

Thunder bellows
Lightning dazzles the night sky
Unless, of course,
You happen to be the thing 
In between
the lightning and the ground

A scorned ego has no friends

only foes

So vengeful a god 

who scolds at random
As the sky cannot bear fury 

a second longer
Electricity rips the atmosphere
And tonight, anyone

could die by lightning strike