What Is Freedom?

Before the Taking of a Toast and Tea

Do you want to know what I did
Yesterday?
Do you want to, really?
Do you want to know how I had
Come home at 4 as usual and
Had a cup of hot Grey tea?
And do you want to know how I had
Sat on the couch in Grey mist of blissed ignorance?
And how I had gotten up and gone to the cupboard,
As usual,
And reached for the Orange clock -
With a little hesitancy -
Winding back its hands -
And how I opened the fridge to get
My big Brother's Left-over Red carton of milk -
Spilling at the brim - and alas! not
Out of date!
And do you want to know how I was anxious
To pour it into my tea
For fear
of spilling - or worse:
For fear
Of not spilling?

I have drank tea,
I have made tea,
I have drowned in tea.

12 years a tea-leaf
Dreaming of tea.

Centuries a rebel
Fighting for tea.

6 million times a Jew
Torn away from tea.

Give me tea and I will drink it.
Tear it from me, and I will taste it.