Christmas Cookies

It arrived today: neither a box nor a package,
but a parcel: bundled and replete
in brown paper and cotton twine.
With no return address, it held a postmark
from a place I will always call home
in spite of a quarter-century separation
marked by three thousand miles of life.

 

The contents were faded and yellowed,
some sepia and others tin-type: photographs
of a farm, a village, a township, a city;
photographs of immigrant families
from Hungary, Italy, Germany, Greece;
photographs of horse-drawn sleighs and wagons;
unpaved streets with clapboard houses;
dates and names, sometimes histories,
carefully penned in corners and on backsides
of paper, all serving as a reminder of why

 

each Christmas I roll little pecan-flecked
balls of shortbread pastry in powdered sugar,
hand-dip twice-baked pistachio biscotti,
fold kiflis with almond and apricot filling
before sprinkling with sugar,
drizzle honeyed syrup over still-warm baklava
and cut gingerbread into perfect bite-size men.

Reviews

[Shimmerbliss/CAF]

What can I say? Your work has touched me to the deepest place. Your memories written with your unique voice are warming me.

[Kelly Rainwater]

Thank you, Shimmer! I'm so glad that my simple words and remembrances have touched you.

[Shara Faskowitz]

What a lovely memory piece! It unfolds bit by bit and transitions beautifully from the memories to their place in the narrator's modern life. That enjambment between the last line of the second strophe and the first line of the third is just perfect. Really a pleasure to read. Thank you for sharing it. :-)

Peace,
Shara

[Tim McGovern]

This has the same feel as Truman Capote's " A Christmas Memory", a story I still read every Christmas season.
Each word seems perfectly chosen and placed, like a decoration on a Christmas tree, it feels nostalgic and warm and homey with just a hint of melancholia.
It is beautiful almost flawless writing.
Thank you.
Namaste'
Tim