Teatime “A watch pot never boils child!” Grandma warned. I stood in her linoleumed kitchen breathing in the sunlight, Lysol, and vinegar. Saturday, a day of chores, we’d cleaned the countertops and stove, left them gleaming, earned ourselves a teatime. I waited on the kettle’s whistle to begin its serenade. Through the doorway, on the center of the dining room table ham salad sandwiches quartered and crustless, homemade tea cakes, sweet butter and sand plum jelly preened with perfection, softly called our names Today it was a table set proper, porcelain cups and saucers, Wedgewood, the good stuff passed through Ms. Anne’s kitchen down to the help, my grandmother, who’d been dutiful for more than three decades for five dollars a day and car fare. The linen tablecloth pressed, starched, welcomed everything in its place, including the azaleas from the garden sitting center in their crystal vase. There was space at the table for everyone, Momma, Aunt Trudy, Cousin Kay, Ms. Iva Jean from two doors down and the perennial guests of honor, blue-eyed Jesus and JFK, both adorned in polished wooden frames from their place on the wall over the sideboard. After an eternity, the copper kettle yielded its stubborn stance, water began its dance leading to the serenade, the signal that it was time to sit and be served. The rising steam of brewed jasmine and earl grey mingled with gossip and soft laughter. For a few moments we claimed deliverance. The chores would keep as teabags and four generations of womenfolk steeped in the comfort of each other’s company. I Am the red maple waking from frigid winter’s sleep re-adorned in my crimson coat of tender leaves. I am the cacophony of robin and sparrow song returning from southern roost on morning breezes. I am a swirling dervish of dried leaves dancing upon the surface of moss-covered forest floors. I am fragrances of honeysuckle and salt wafting over rocky ridges to meet the sea. I am the needled beak of a black hummingbird savoring nectars from the blossoms’ cores. I am crazy quilt flung over a front porch rocker past lives concealed and revealed in scraps of cloth. I am fresh churned butter on a kitchen counter ready to surrender to warm bread from the oven. I am gospel shape note hymns hanging in the air piercing and permeating a chapel of weary spirits. I am the translucent poofs of flowered dandelions rising to meet the sun’s rays as they angle in descent from the heavens, like me, like you, like us all, here to stay but for a little while.
Kelly Hams Pearson is located close to the river’s edge where the Missouri meets the Kaw in Parkville, Missouri. Her writing serves as divining rod. Her keen interest in social and restorative justice intersects with mystical truth and personal discovery as she celebrates ancestors, guides, and historical sages through words.
Guest Editor Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, the 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate is the author of 24 books, including How Time Moves: New & Selected Poems; Miriam’s Well, a novel; and The Sky Begins At Your Feet: A Memoir on Cancer, Community, and Coming Home to the Body. Founder of Transformative Language Arts, she is offers writing workshops, coaching, and collaborative projects YourRightLivelihood.com with Kathryn Lorenzen, Bravevoice.com with Kelley Hunt, and TheArtofFacilitation.net with Joy Roulier Sawyer. CarynMirriamGoldberg.com.
The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative 
I love breathed in sunlight