Tea-time

Tea has – and always will

be – spelt with an 'L'.

Why, you ask me,

quite rightfully?

The reasons are dead simple:

because it can serve as

a handy looking-glass,

because it may also be a well

with which you may your thirst quell,

but 'tis also a book by the fire

or a meal when times are a-dire,

'tis a long-lost child,

a brat you can't chide,

'tis a feisty woman on your knees,

a pouty Gill who says: “Pretty please?”

'tis a radiant Sunday afternoon

or a masked haiku by the moon;

tea is a deer throttled by a hound,

tea is midnight's fog on Edin's Mound,

tea is the books you'll never read,

tea is the crumbs and the birds you feed,

tea is a plane's fastened seatbelt –

that's why it can't but be spelt

on Earth, in Heaven and in Hell,

with anything but an 'L'.

I left a copy of this piece sellotaped on a concrete pillar in the Looking-Glass Bookshop in Edinburgh (fine place which I strongly recommend for the quality of the books, the warm welcome, the ready-for-anything spirit and the taste of tea I had there). There may be differences in the punctuation (same for the dating of the writing...my memory doesn't work wonders) and I originally left the title to be added by any potential reader, but it is essentially the same.