Green Tea and Sage - Jesse Thomas

poem read by Timothy Arliss OBrien

Green Tea and Sage
Jesse Thomas

For lunch you made me a glass of green tea,

a salad, and for dessert, an organic pear.

You were busy burning your sage,

practicing for the peace you pine

for, as if all the evils in all of

us fear smoke and quartz and mint.

You prefer your calendula ointment

over my bacitracin practicality.

Your hand-waving, “I’ll live

naturally" mentality will only pare

down your remaining years like pine

needles broken in the wind. How sage!

I believe in the marvels of today, this age,

not your holistic medicine and natural treatments.

“But surely it can’t hurt to try,” you opine,

as if elderberry or Reiki or green tea

will alleviate what has impaired

my health. They couldn’t cure an olive.

You’d do anything to make sure I’ll live,

but we’ve heard the verdict from the real sage.

All I can do is put on a clean shirt and a fresh pair

of pants and hope for some chemical easement.

Here is the reality:

You hold my hand as I lay supine,

we reminisce about the peace we pine

for, the good and the bad and all of

the little moments, like the green tea

and the wedding cake and the passage

of time from teenage pot to mint

juleps to mortgages and organic pears.

You say that we really do make a good pair.

“Even if you’re a kook and I’m a drag,” I opine,

and we laugh in the light of the moment.

And I tell myself that even if all of

the moments left are like this, their passage

is worth the occasional hostility.

The chemo treatment is green like tea,

and I propine the burning sage.

Don’t despair, my love. I’ll live.

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