Out of the Tea Forest
Jab the Mighty, ever dear--
That explains the green scales, shimmering like spilt oil at sunset, that profused among the tea leaves. I brewed them up, you know, in a red wax teapot, and they tasted peculiarly of yucca bells and fresh corn husk. How wonderfully of summer you taste, my darling. At any event, I found a large toadstool button and shovelled my way out, throwing up great fragrant clouds behind me. My dress was quite spoiled, of course. Streaked in tea oils and over-boiled water, not to mention the shards of teapot stuck in my shoe-buckles. I have heard tell of a lemon-apple waterfall not far from here, and I think I shall make for it. It is just over the next hill. I must pretty myself before our banquet. It would simply not do to appear before you in such a state. You, who always look so marvelously fierce and magnificent, with your scarlet crest and polished claws. The blue of my skirt is entirely obscured by brown leaves. I look like a barn owl, with delicious-smelling feathers. The Cat jumped three feet when he saw me, and disappeared in midair, he was so frightened. I scooped a bit of English Breakfast out of my eye--his smile returned like a new moon. Spat green Lung Ching with tiny white blossoms still clinging to the stem from my mouth--his purple velvet ears pointed up out of the dark. White Pekoe from the hollow of my throat--his big, rounded paws stamped the earth. But not until I relinquished the Noble Beauty all the way from China and the mists, flavoured with a hint of rose hip and dandelion root from the small of my back did he come fulminating into view and ask me to brush his tail, if I would be so kind. He had caught a bit of Wild Orange Spice in his fur. I untangled it with a honeycomb, and all the while he purred, sending veils of bubbles up into the trees. I shall wash, when I find the waterfall, and then home to thee and the delicious oven-door I am sure is waiting. And we shall have no shortage of tea! I saved fistfuls. And the Cat gave me a clutch of palm-date flavoured tobacco--I look forward to playing in the seafog of your smoke rings, my pretty one.
