Patience

by Yehudit Ben-Zvi Heller
     translated by Agha Shahid Ali with the poet

My grandmother always served
tea hot in cups of thin glass,
thin with patience, thin with use,
and we waited for them to cool.

We must always wait, she said,
the way we do, with wine, for Elijah.
But the eyes must remain
open.

And her eyes were blue.