Seeing that tin of tea (bought by my parents because Magda served up a cup of Russian Caravan Tea that was without equal - we all remembered it) reminded me that some of the most profound influences on me in my university education had nothing to do with the doctrine or academics.
by Judith Cullen
© 2018
So many lessons compressed,
four years of discovery, challenging
everything that was my known world.
So many openings of eyes
to a greater composition of cultures,
thoughts new and exciting.
Yet among so many revelations
a summation would be the completion,
or so one would think.
Lecture and practice, love and sex,
politics and religion, art and philosophy,
were not all diploma-equated.
It was the tea: Magda's Tea.
Spicy, rich and voluble of
foreign lands and exotic histories sipped
from the safety of her porcelain
A rich Russian Caravan that emboldened,
tasting of exploration and sensual delight,
amidst the whispering pines on her deck.
I would happily journey there once more;
from innocence to tingling rapture, a universe
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