DARK CHOCOLATE COVERED MACADAMIAS

WANT ONE?

lush hand-painted

jacket's large velvet pocket

holding cookies

© Joy Krauthammer

DARK CHOCOLATE COVERED MACADAMIAS

- by Joy Krauthammer


What paradise. What joy.
From a baker I bought a bag of big
macadamia and dark chocolate chip
hand-made cookies.
I chose them, one by one
from the bakery shelves.

I ate them, bite by bite,
all myself, as I walked
the streets of Boston,
listening attentively
to a church steeple bell
chime to eleven the time,
as I broke apart
the melting chocolate treasure,
piece by piece,
out of my lush hand-painted
jacket's large velvet pocket.

To top it off, dayenu / enough
the luscious cookies were
"two for one" that day,
and I did not even know it.
Maybe the cookie bakers realized
Passover was arriving
and wanted us Jews
to enjoy our cookie freedom
before the journey
and Exodus
with matzoh / flat baked bread.

If I thought
those cookies were decadent,
yesterday for my Gemini birthday,
at Trader Joe's I splurged
on a whole container
of smooth,
dark chocolate covered macadamia nuts.
No cookie dough needed.
On the shelf,
dozens of chocolate covered delights
to choose from.
No sunflower seeds for me, nor edamames.
Not even the cherries.
Surely not milk chocolate
even if they cover cashews.
I passed over
the frozen chocolate mousse cups,
and chocolate cheesecake.
Too indulgent for one,
I mused.

Dayenu, to just have one
pure, round, white macadamia,
bringing me to visions of Hawaii,
aloha vacations past in the sun,
snorkeling in warm ocean water.
Which do I love more?

Here in the Valley of the desert,
I have a whole box of bountiful, beautiful,
large, dark chocolate covered macadamia nuts,
each an individual exquisite organic form,
delicious, savory crunchy morsels
with lingering flavor.

One by one, in rapture,
I pleasure myself with memories.
out of my jacket's large velvet pocket.
I am grateful that G*d loves chocolate.

Will I share them?
Want one?

WANT ONE?

Cookies

 in lush hand-painted

jacket's large velvet pocket

art jacket by Alexis, One Wing

self portrait © Joy Krauthammer

CHAG SAMEACH

.

PISTACHIO HALVAH

ODE TO A CHUNK OF PISTACHIO HALVAH


~ Joy Krauthammer


Oh, to celebrate my birthday,
what do I desire?
HALVAH, delicious Pistachio Halvah
Blended in whole nuts, not pieces.

Age 18, I received Pistachio Halvah
via my aunt, from her Turkish man, Nuri.
With the memory, I still salivate.

When I was a child
my parents gave to me
on each birthday
a small jar of baby Gherkin pickles.
They lasted until the next year
on my birthday.
How?
Each day, carefully
I took a very small bite
out of a pickle from the jar
and put back the reduced pickle.

My friend from age 13, Sheila, still
recalls my ritual
of the single wee pickle bite
to last all year, my delight.
I let Sheila have a baby pickle baby bite.

How could something
briny, bumpy and green
have been so precious?
(This year, 48 years later
I have pickled my own pickles.)

Now I'm 61, friend Rochelle
listens to my desires,
and from Turkey
shleps all the way,
Pistachio Halvah for me.
Am I so easy to please?
On my birthday at shul, I receive it.
How holy can be Halvah and Rochelle!

Pistachio Halvah
won't last
until my next birthday
because
I share it
and
I eat chunks.

Oh, Pistachio Halvah
you taste so good
all the way from Turkey
with Rochelle
whose heart is so big and so kind
to remember what I like and for me
"ropes" in Pistachio Halvah
and crosses 'customs'
with my precious cargo.

Pistachio Halvah is here
always at the local Turkish store, but
it would not be a gift of love to me.
.
.

TRESPASSING FEAR

Trespassing Boundaries and Fear

Joy trespassing her own boundaries and fear

© Nadav


Trespassing Boundaries and Fear

- Joy Krauthammer

Afraid of the water, 

I couldn't cross over Sedona's icy Oak Creek

to get to the other side.

Trespassing my own boundaries and fear

With encouragement from a friend 

Over the long narrow log I walked 

as if a trapeze wire.

I did it.

 On the other side, 

Joy is revealed.

~ 

BLACK and WHITE

BLACK and WHITE

and it ain't the cookie

 - Joy Krauthammer

Low, long,

deep throaty moans, meows.

Big black cat

stands on haunches

face to face with

large black and white cat

lying down.

Action on

couch cushion,

couchless

foam stuffing protruding.

Cat's claws?

Several feet high

on top of

piled furniture

he doesn't move.

Is it a him? 

His territory, he groans.

Or are they mating

by my bedroom door?

Intruders

at the far end

of my back porch.

I listen to the choir

from the distance

wondering what is

their intention.

I can see,

peering out into

the dark of night

from my kitchen window

near where I type

just past midnight,

the action with sound

and it ain't healing.

Good.

Maybe they are black and white

mice police.
.
.

 
 

ODE TO RUTHIE

Listening to your poems

Love you

Love your animation

Love your reading

Love your colors

Love too, your blues

Love your dreams

Love your life. 

Love Jerusalem

Love your dance

Love circle dance

It only takes three

beautiful

One

- Joy Krauthammer

3.18.2019

Libby's Poem

Mom, obm, was an amazing artist creating in every medium, a gardener, and also a poet. She loved writing limericks. Here's a poem on the back of her desert painting (on a serving tray) of Mexican farmers with their donkey leaving to go to work.

"In the hour of False Dawn
The Beasts of Burden appear
Dun-Colored, one with the earth
Silhouetted dimly against the promise
Of a rising sun" 

-Libby

Mom died in 1969, age 49.
And at age 16 Mom was the book reviewer for the Atlanta Constitution, the news paper of the South. 
Mom loved writing rhyming limericks. 
Can you imagine my mom with a southern twang... drawl...? (She suffered so much with cancer pain.) Wish she could have known my family filled with artists, and even her own mom, z"l, who painted into her late 80's, 2 more decades after Mom died.