by Penny Perry (Fallbrook, CA)
My six-year-old granddaughter
comes home from school
and declares, “Jesus saved me.”
My four-year-old granddaughter
echoes, “Jesus.”
“I need to tell them who we are,”
my daughter says.
My daughter found Judaism on her own.
I’m a Jew with Buddhist tendencies.
I pray to God and escort live spiders
from the shower to the grass.
My daughter gathers flour, honey,
eggs, oil, sugar, and yeast,
pours them in a mixer. The mixer hums.
She hums, lets the dough rise,
rolls the dough out.
She’s beautiful in her pink dress
and shawl, her hair tied back,
one loose curl.
She shapes the dough into four braids
and weaves them into a loaf.
She brushes the loaf with an egg wash,
bakes the bread to a golden brown.
She tells her daughters that all over
the world at sundown on Shabbat Jewish women
light candles. The candles she picks
are small with tiny flames. She places
each candle in a glass and puts them
on the cupboard. Each girl will have a candle of her own.
My daughter shows her daughters her book
of prayers, her Hebrew name embossed
on the cover. She says a prayer
in a language her girls have never
heard before. She asks them to close
their eyes and picture God,
says God loves them and will keep them safe.
I don’t tell my daughter that a friend
carries her flour and honey,
eggs and oil to the synagogue,
where police in uniforms holster
their Glocks, guard the temple,
so my friend can bake and worship
in peace.
My granddaughters stand in their dresses,
their eyes closed.
I picture them as grown up mothers praying
in their kitchens at sundown.
I wipe my eyes, breathe in the scent of baking bread.
Penny Perry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize six times, by six different publishers. Garden Oak Press has published two of her poetry books, Santa Monica Disposal and Salvage and Woman with Newspaper Shoes. Her poetry has appeared in many publications, including Earth’s Daughters, Lilith, Poetry International, San Diego Poetry Annual, Paterson Literary Review, Mid-Atlantic Review, and Limestone Circle. Her novel Selling Pencils and Charlie was a finalist in the San Diego Book Awards. She was the prose editor at Knot Literary Magazine for ten years. In the early 1970’s, she was one of the first female screenwriting fellows at the American Film Institute; a screenplay she wrote there became a film on PBS.
The Jewish Writing Project 