Tomato Soup and Scotch Broth, opposing tastes of brew.
One mug coloured brilliant red, the other placid blue.
One mug featured, tasty Herbs, savoury flavoured dipping.
The other bragged of beefy stock with barley, leaks and dripping.
Smooth and creamy, spicy hot, chunky lumps, or garlic paste:
Both distinctly opposite, everything including taste.
Both mugs at the China shop, waiting, wishing to be sold.
One could fly to someplace hot, the other someplace cold.
It happened as predicted, at last the two could sever.
But shock, they sold both off at once, and off they went together.
Proudly on the kitchen shelf, glaring ’til they almost burst,
Trying to outdo themselves, each one vying to be first.
Tomato soup was first to go. Oh the ecstasy and joy!
Could this possibly be true? Instant wanton soup with soy?
Scotch Broth’s fate was even worse, grabbed from off the counter top.
He got filled to overflow with sticky, fizzy, sugar pop.
Oh, embarrassment and shame. Each new fill was ripe with fraught.
Nameless, tasteless and yet worst, never cold nor barely hot.
Worn and stained they finely sat on the dark and dusty shelves.
Differences in taste seemed mute. So did pity for themselves.
Standing close so long together, colours blended, letters blurred,
Recipes and numbers jumbled, as it was with herbs and word.
One dark eve, the old maid searching, finding what she fumbled for,
Took two mugs with recipes she had never used before.
But by now, just purple mugs, with half a recipe on each,
Still she would try to rescue, what survived the age and bleach.
Savoury herbs, she read slowly, garlic cloves with chunks of meat,
Two tomatoes, leeks and barley, mix together then add heat.
Never was such flavour tasted. Large the crowds who came to see.
Scotch Tomato Broth, she named it. Queen of Soups it came to be.
Now, when royalty consumes it, only purple mugs will do.
And they cannot be divided- never one, but always two.
-Doug Garrett