The World in My Cup

A pure wind envelops my body.

The whole world seen in a single cup.

Kokan Shiren

Some mornings, my cup seems to hold the whole world in its depths. I pour a beaker, look down and fall in love with the tea and the steam rising in ardent curls from it. I fall in love with the earthenware vessel and the wooden surface on which it rests, with the whole wide world and the infinite blue space in which it floats, with my kitchen window and this tattered old life, all over again.

Then I sit down in front of the computer to write about the feeling, and I cannot get the words together to describe it. What to do? I take a deep breath and scribble a rapt but meager little bowl of words, try to describe something vast and beautiful, something sentient and breathing and boundless and inexpressible. Who would have thought a simple cup of tea could enfold such wonders? Emaho!