December 23, 2025
Every year something arrived in my mailbox, before during or after;
the timing unrelated to any mystery
you’d entered and explored
before emerging with that year’s
small parcel summation…
December 21, 2025
“Once again we come together.
This is the season to sharpen knives,
test the waters, prepare for weather.
Bitter almond, thyme, sage, cloves:
spices this time of year requires.”
December 21, 2025
Switch off the light to understand how a candle dies — turns inward to disappear. A flicker burns stronger, briefly, stills, then darkens...
December 20, 2025
Eight nights. Flicker: By definition, “natural agents that stimulate sight and make things visible.” $2 twinkle strands around an old washstand. Bright, reddened gold.
December 20, 2025
We try to be grown-ups, but troubles in herds invade our home, which is usually secular, and raise our anxiety to levels molecular. Such was our sad state when a package from Adda showed up on our doormat…
December 19, 2025
Dreidels scattered on the table,
gelt as prizes for wins,
latkes warming in the oven,
but, alas, no dessert.
December 18, 2025
The solstice sliced us suddenly,
a raging and lonely cold,
a year not going gentle.
December 16, 2025
Once, I was a soldier, brave and bold,
a guardian of sugar-spun realms,
where candy canes grew like trees
and laughter rang like crystal bells.
December 14, 2025
“A single perfectly-browned latke
slid onto his plate…” I stop reading,
cannot go further, until I digest this.
A devout Catholic feeding a Vietnamese
teenager a latke she prepared for him
in the town of Gladness, Connecticut?
December 12, 2025
Oh, we’ll leave the tree up for you, Sonny,” she’d write to him. Her nickname for him — So like the sun was her baby boy.
December 9, 2025
With her camel humps bound in an iron brassiere of modesty, she inspired me, the newest magi, to bring cinnamon to the kitchen crèche…
December 7, 2025
