For Passover

Dunked in warm milk, or smothered with butter, a treat

when covered with cheese made at home, by my aunt.

An ivory mound, soft to the touch, that once was milk,

now lined with protruding dots, thick slices, on a matzo

in our yearly visit to the farm of my aunt and uncle,

once a year when spring burst into flowers, on Passover.

Never since did I get to experience Passover,

as a concoction of  heavy sweet cream, my special treat,

mixed with aroma of cow manure, drifting off the clothes of my uncle.

In the kitchen, the sizzle of the boiling pot stirred carefully by my aunt,

while my cousin and I crumbled the day old matzo,

for our chicks chirping in the sawdust, we softened the pieces in milk.

Fresh cut green grass, sawdust, cow manure and boiling milk,

whenever I catch a whiff, I know it is the smell of Passover.

Ivory pale cheese, on sprinkled- with- brown- specks- matzo,

we loved to nibble slowly along the dotted lines, a rare treat,

as spending the first days of spring with my favorite aunt,

or from the top of a mountain of cut grass, looking down at my uncle.

There was a bakery, on the ground floor of the house of my other uncle,

who all through the year was kneading flour with milk,

but once a year, when on the second floor, my aunt,

was busy staging her holiday dishes, for Passover.

Chicken soup, meat and potatoes, and her specialty, seven layer cake, an Hungarian treat,

she was the only one who could make it from matzo.

Biting into a square piece of cardboard- like matzo,

I could smell the bread coming from the bakery of my uncle.

Matzo sprinkled with bread scent, what a treat,

as competing with my cousins, who will dip it faster in the milk,

in our visits to their house, in the red sands by the sea, in Passover,

trying to hide matzo crumbs, and sand from my aunt.

Cleaning the house for the holiday it was my aunt’s

hard earned job, doom to failure by broken matzo.

The ancient tale repeated itself every year in Passover,

just like the bread crumbs forever trailing my uncle.

We knew that if we would behave and finish our milk,

he would take us in his sail boat, a thrilling treat.

Cheese made by my aunt with the fresh milk brought in by my uncle,

chewing along the lines, brittle matzo, then dunked in warm milk,

Memories of Passover, I savor them, and long for them, delicious treat.