Poem: “Tea and Sleep”

If, over this world, there’s a ruler

who holds in his hand bestowal and seizure,

at whose command seeds are sown,

as with his will the harvest ripens,

I turn in prayer, asking him

to decree for the hour of my demise,

when my days draw to an end,

that I’ll be sitting and taking a sip

of weak tea with a little sugar

from my favorite glass

in the gentlest shade of the late afternoon

during the summer.

And if not tea and afternoon,

then let it be the hour

of my sweet sleep just after dawn.

                          –

And may my compensation be – 

if in fact I see compensation –

I who during my time in this world

didn’t split open an ant’s belly,

and never deprived an orphan of money,

didn’t cheat on measures of oil

or violate a swallow’s veil;

who always lit a lamp

at the shrine of our lord, Shihab a-Din,

on Friday evenings,

and never sought to beat my friends

or neighbors at games,

or even those I simply knew;

I who stole neither wheat nor grain

and did not pilfer tools

would ask – 

that now, for me, it be ordained

that once a month,

or every other,

I be allowed to see

the one my vision has been denied – 

since that day I parted

from her when we were young.

                          –

But as for the pleasures of the world to come,

all I’ll ask

of them will be – 

the bliss of sleep, and tea.

“Tea and Sleep” from So What: New & Selected Poems, 1971–2005. Copyright © 2006 by Taha Muhammad Ali. Reprinted with permission of Copper Canyon Press.