Blesses like mother bird's herdsong billows and beams teachings bringing early worms like, my mom, bringing
Chocolate crinkle-luminum gold-wrapped care to my classes like she did for my siblings, to culture community
Dreidels a dozen, plastic gallonfuls in neon colors to play games dealing dimes counting delight like night/days
Eight days/nights to be exact, explaining to each class the enemy and each miracle experienced, energizing
Fight of firebrand underfrogs, finding fabulous and festive first grade fun in famed fables of oppression and fuel
Glimmers of grace she gave/gives/giving gimel the gelt for gimel (which means, all), giving god, glory, giggles,
Hebrew prayers shared and explained by my mom the Hanukkah helper highlighting both the horror and honor
I mean to thank my mom, too— for gifting, for sharing, for illustrating the outsideness I inhabit not infrequently
Jewishness not as joke, Chanukah not as Just Gifts, but our culture, as rededication, as survival jubilation
Kislev, keen and kindled around-December, knits different calendar kaleidoscopes kept with a knack for knots
Latke skillets sizzle “DUH-LICIOUS” lip-lick-punctuated with the same youthfulness lingering in teardrop light LED
Menorahs glowing the masses of classmates manic curiosities into flickers of magic— understanding, moreso
Noshing-up the snacks, or the fun facts as-if they were snacks, spinning stories of great gimel, shin, hay, nun
Oil– then finding SOME oil, my mom exaggerates the syllable, this lasts them eight days. Oy vey— yay! Or, Oh
Partnership— with a putz like me and such patient parents and a priceless legacy— providing, phenomenally
Quiet, bright soul. A quaint battle then quest story, which mom quickly quips together a quirky quartet, no, quilt
Rededicating the holiday, mom teaches the yearly repeated sing, rock, and rollick as a riveting resplendence
Sundown shamash lights for us, mom shows with a shake, shimmy, and spin, doing the Menorah Hora. Social
Tradition. Talmud tale celebration to light. Teaching the little ones and trusting us to retell the takes, the Torah
Underdogs up against the ultra-fascist autocrat and the king's underlings. Urging the utmost unity universally
Victory is the vibe, mom reminds me, vanquishing the violence, surviving despite it, with valor above the vortex
Warrior Macabee spirit— asking, Why? Which way? When what's wonderful, warm and whole takes the W e-
Xtra helper candle shamash, that's what mom is, with xeroxes of activities of excitement battling xenophobia
Yarmulkes brighten heads capped like candles, you know, yawning Yiddish yowls, like mom gives, light yields
Zeal like offspring bird herdsong, zigging holy and zagging all the way around the world, into the future, zoom!