This poem is part of the special section, New Poems of U.S. History, reflecting on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence selected by editors Carolivia Herron, Summer Tate, and Robert Bettmann. You can read more about the section on the Day Eight website here.
On the 250th anniversary
of the Boston Tea Party,
I sip my obligatory mug
of English breakfast tea
with the usual misgivings,
never switching to coffee
like a true American,
though my Scots-Irish
forebears spent centuries
under British rule
before immigrating to
the Colonies. So, two
cheers for the Empire
and its legacy, and zero
cheers for the plutocracy
that seems to have
replaced it. The kings now
all wear business suits
and ride bulletproof limos
down Rodeo Drive.
But the custom survives
for steeping baked leaves
at 212 degrees, then adding
sugar and a splash of cream
to tame the bitterness.
Gerry Sloan is a retired music professor living in the Arkansas Ozarks. His poetry collections are: Paper Lanterns (2011), Crossings: A Memoir in Verse (2017), and Cemetery Plums (2026). He has published seven chapbooks, including one in Mandarin. Recent work appears in Tar River Poetry, Cave Region Review, and Slant. In 1990 he won the WORDS AWARD in poetry from the Arkansas Literary Society. In 2018 his “Poem for Palestine” won first prize in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla literary contest. www.gerrysloanpoetry.com
Featured image Cornischong at lb.wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
