Poet Tea

The night air, waters (somewhere) burble. A deer in the dark hoof-crunches yesterday’s now 12 degree snow. A mouse moves. In sudden urgency. Unseen all. Unnoticed, none. The moon is lost in wane, in fog, in the coldest hour. I balance a bundle of barky splits in the fold of my arm. Indentations. Scratches. The stove awaits. The kettle, too. Nearly midnight. Poetry soon. Beneath the maple silhouetted only by my memory of the corner of Sky shared in differing times by first the sun and then the moon or first the moon and then the sun. Taiwanese whole-leaf, tightly bound. Soon to unfurl in the new heat. Some rinds to plop in, too. The necessaries will wait, tonight. The tea, the fire, the words won’t wait, tonight. They are the Actual Necessary. I come to them in dark. To drink of their light. They call to me in dark. To offer me their light.