The Bears Take Tea

 

By Antique Lady

Bears in the garden
sipping sasafras tea

'Neath the shade and shadows
of the old plum tree

"How many sugars?" "One lump or two?"
"Not too sweet, one lump will do."

Rasberry scones, to go with their tea
Silently I watch, wishing they'd included me

Papa's tea is hot... Mama bears is cold
Something familiar...of how this story goes

Don't imitate me; 

it's as boring as the two
halves of a melon.
By Matsuo Basho
Translated By Robert Hass
Tweaked By Neil Fleischmann

 Symbols

Whoever puts on a tallis when he was young he will never forget;
Taking it out of the soft velvet bag, opening the folded shawl,
Spreading it out, kissing the length of the neckband (embroidered
or trimmed in gold.) Then swinging it in a great swoop overhead
like a sky, a wedding canopy, a parachute. And then winding it
around his head as in hide-and-seek, wrapping
his whole body in it, close and slow, snuggling into it like the cocoon
of a butterfly, then opening would-be wings to fly.
And why is the tallis striped and not checkered black-and-white
like a chessboard? Because squares are finite and hopeless.
Stripes come from infinity and to infinity they go
like airport runways where angels land and take off.
Whoever has put on a tallis will never forget.
When he comes out of a swimming pool or the sea,
he wraps himself in a large towel, spreads it out again
over his head, and again snuggles into it close and slow,
still shivering a little, and he laughs and blesses.

-- Yehuda Amichai