Beth A. Fleisher

Hour 18

 

Prompt 18: Write a narrative poem set during a holiday. It could be a poem based on your own lived experience or it could be an imagined event.

 

 

Why Is This Night Different from Every Other Night?

 

All is ready for the Passover feast.

Sparkling glass stemware, gleaming silver utensils,

the menorah with candles ready to light,

a white tablecloth with fine gold embroidery.

In the center of the table, the Seder Plate,

which holds the traditional foods for the Passover ceremony:

a roasted lamb shank bone (or a chicken neck)

karpas (parsley),

chazeret (bitter herbs: Romaine lettuce),

charoset (sweet salad: Apples, nuts, wine, cinnamon)

maror (Bitter herbs: Horseradish),

Salt water,

a roasted egg.

 

Three Matzah wait on a special plate,

each separated by a white napkin,

and covered with another white napkin.

One is eaten with Maror

and one becomes the special dessert.

 

In a Jewish household there is no other night

as special as this night, when the story of

our ancestors’ flight from Egypt is recounted

and acted out in ceremony

to keep the deliverance story alive

for the next generation.