Chai-time

Anytime you visit their house

You’d find heaps of cups in the sink

Some are old with chipped bottoms

which leave dented impressions

on long-dead newspapers advertisements;

Others, with overused rims and cracks

running down from the edge

like bolts of lightning from the moistened sky

Or the chaffing earth when clouds are too dry.

Any time of the day, any month of the year

Everyone here loves to drink tea

Or coffee.

As long as it is hot and freshly brewed

Who doesn’t like to take a mindless sip

Or a cup for two?

They watch the morning age into noon

Or the day decaying into night

They hold happiness in the cup of their hands

Like an ordinary relic of everyday habit

A practised smile at their barren land.

Strangers in the big city, lost friends from the town

Offer me a cup from their kitchen

Some with old chipped bottoms

some with cracks running down their rims

Happiness to some is a mindless habit

Any time of the day, any month of a year

Who doesn’t like to take a mindless sip

from the heap of cups

From which they have drunk?