I've only this to say:
jasmine tea in a porcelain cup
on a porcelain saucer
on an oaken table
in a fan-cooled tea-room
in the heated dusk
of a summer afternoon.
I would like to relate:
the waving green hanging plants
inside the wide room,
the wave-windy greenery too
on the window's far side
(the window, it's clear so I see
I am akin in that clarity.)
Listen to this:
the decorative icing
neon on pavement,
a bluer, grayer moment
passing next upon each last,
the night that drapes down overcast
like jasmine tea coating
the smooth porcelain cup.
So presented, so ushered:
the swollen musk of summer eve,
the brief, deep hours of reprieve --
my thoughts, too long a guest
arise and leave me, resting
at an oaken table
in a fan-cooled tea-room
in a brush-blown evening
sniffing summer,
sniffing summer's jasmine bloom.