Teapot conversation

Teapot to Teacosy

I love your embrace
Your hug and soft caress
You mould yourself to me
And we are as one.

Be gentle.
Your passion
Your singular sense of purpose
Can smother me
Hide my form.

Be still.
Your colours, tassels, rosettes
Your gaudy stripes and flourishes
Your need to be seen
Your rampant ego
Can overwhelm

It needn’t always be about just you.
A simple love could work as well.

Don’t presume your pre-eminent place
Don’t presume me cold, alone, aloof.
I am fire and passion
Fashioned from clay.
I come from the earth and join with the sun..

My form is more than function
My elegance is not strident
But tempered by the humble task
I will perform.

Stout belly, fine spout and handle
I welcome heat, water, leaf from exotic lands
Combined by experienced hands
To offer understated pleasures
On quiet verandahs, in delicate tearooms
In company or alone.

Of course you’re welcome to join me
But remember
I am no mere mannequin
To give you form.

Teacosy to Teapot

You little upstart
So you’ve been around since the Song Dynasty
Yes, you may have many forms
And your porcelain cousins are quite attractive.
Still you remain
A commoner.

A vessel existing out of need
A container for the higher purposes of others.
Don’t get above yourself.

Can I say without appearing to be smug
that I am more recent, more evolved
Not merely earth and fire.

I am beyond the elements
I am fleece and breeding
I am spun and dyed
I am forged before fires in quiet rooms
By taloned extensions to human form
Rushing forward line after line at breakneck speed.
Reinvented over time
Yet timeless
I too give pleasure.

Dismiss me as mere tea cosy
And you underestimate me
I am valued in my own right.

Vessel
Vassal.

Steve Capelin © 2008