Untitled Document
ecopoem #4
we are more than flirting with catastrophe we are climbing right in bed with it
© Jacqueline Jackson 2007
Here’s a holiday poem by Steven Schneider that
I like very much for its light spirit and evocative sensory detail.
Isn’t this a party to which you’d like to be invited?
Chanukah Lights Tonight
Our annual prairie Chanukah party —
latkes, kugel, cherry blintzes. Friends arrive from nearby towns and dance the twist to “Chanukah Lights
Tonight,”
spin like a dreidel to a klezmer hit.
The candles flicker in the window. Outside, ponderosa pines are tied in red bows. If you squint, the neighbors’ Christmas lights look like the Omaha skyline.
The smell of oil is in the air. We drift off to childhood where we spent our gelt on baseball cards and matinees, cream sodas and potato knishes.
No delis in our neighborhood, only the wind howling over the crushed corn stalks. Inside, we try to sweep the darkness out, waiting for the Messiah to knock, wanting to know if he can join the party.
Reprinted from Prairie
Air Show (Talking River Publications, 2000).
Poem copyright © 2000 by Steven Schneider. American Life
in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also
supported by the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln.
Ted Kooser served as the U.S. Poet Laureate from
2004-2006. For more information, go to www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.
This article appears in Dec 6-12, 2007.
