Karen An-hwei Lee
Women Drying Green Tea Leaves (Tanka)
Light bath of green tea... Camellia sinensis sun-cured, steamed, or flushed young tea, song of a new shoot, spring rains of unadjourned youth. Who will marry me... a question raised by schoolgirls talking in noon shade. Wise women reply, don’t ask. Joy leaps in your childless wombs.
Karen An-hwei Lee is the author of Ardor (Tupelo Press, 2008), In Medias Res (Sarabande Books, 2004), and a chapbook, God’s One Hundred Promises (Swan Scythe Press, 2002). The recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, she chairs the English department at a faith-based college in southern California, where she is also a novice harpist.
