They turn and turn to music from a shtetle across a faraway sea. Two big frying pans, latkes in peanut oil, not frybread not sopapillas in lard. Bottles of sweet wine, platters of cakes, piles of pennies on the floor and a dreidle carved by a santero who shrugged as he cut a piece of the story into each side. I want to splash it all over, stretch it eight days like temple oil in the everlasting light. Six stars of peace and one more candle.
Love is rarefied in mountain air, inhaled like a day without a shopping list.
Light me four candles. Stay quiet till it s wick and wax, then one by one they re out. We nod yes, reluctant to leave our bed and see it all end, father Christmas and the Channuka woman, overlapping in flannels. From the Inside Out by Christine Hemp from The Practice of Peace. You scratch a match to light the stove.