Frittata for Hanukah
- Frittata for Hanukah
frittata not latkes— what happened this year with children not home the menorah sits on the shelf by Ben's bright colored 3-D geometry project the candles wait in the drawer with the cosmos seeds ready for their season but forgotten the menorah empty not gracing the table what happened this year the candles not glowing to herald the eight days no gelt and no dreidels or symbols of light everlasting— unthinking, we had the frittata— whipped eggs, fluffy chevre, soft eggplant [End Page 123] chopped cilantro a concoction so strange we marveled how tasty and went and forgot the oil, the onion, the grated potatoes for latkes— no candles, no prayers to connect with parents now gone children not home, ancestors bold who shore up and guide us through seasons untold including Vermont's Yankee New England deep-winter freeze
Buff Lindau grew up in Columbia, South Carolina, in the 1950s and '60s where Jews were very conscious of not being of the dominant culture. After getting involved in anti-Vietnam War politics and the heady early days of the women's movement, she wrote one of the earliest women's studies dissertations on Feminism in the English Novel: George Eliot, Virginia Wolfe and Doris Lessing. She has remained committed to Judaism and feminism, and has worked for many years as PR director for Saint Michael's College in Vermont. With her children grown, she has recently taken up poetry and has published in The Onion River Review.
