A GOOD CUP OF TEA

No Gael ever wore her family name,

‘twas Norse as the winds from the Pole

that will freeze a fisher’s hands on the sheets.

Yet, Mary Bridget was she christened

in the county of Mayo.

With passels of Mary sisters and cousins,

‘twas Bridget she was meant to be called.

But it was Beezie, not Bridget,

her name came to be,

and it was Beezie when she sailed

as a girl to the port of New York.

Deep in the hills of Ohio

a position awaited

in an half-Irish household

rich upon steel and coal.

There she labored, near content,

for the blessing of numerous and free

cups of tea to be had.

Till with mean-spirited ways,

came the new housekeeper

to lock up tight the aromatic tea drawer.

But the master, noticing

our Beezie’s lost smiles

and the lack of her sweetly hummed tunes

while she dusted and cleaned,

slipped her a second key,

saying Beezie should take her sips

whenever it pleased her.

So, Beezie smiled and hummed softly

the auld songs while she worked,

danced to their playin’ on evenings off,

till she married Patrick Higgins

(of the O’Haegin clan),

and she raised their children,

all six with true Irish hearts.

Those children’s children, too,

kept the Irish songs and ways

in their hearts till here

in a great grandchild

still the echoes remain,

along with a craving for a good cup of tea.