As you start a new home, I pass on this teapot,
brown-glazed, old and squat, unlovely, yes. . .
But it's more than a receptacle for tea,
having long experience in brewing endurance,
containing patience and dispensing courage.
Clasp trembling hands about this treasure
when the need asserts itself.
Over a steaming cup the lump of grief ---
intolerable at times ---
softens, and bitterness dissolves.
With clearer eyes one looks
through this amber well at truth,
and rises hope-refreshed.
Unfailingly with me it has been thus. . .
with you also let it be.
Anonymous poem
