Menorah, Melbourne, December 2003
The shows of Christmas lights in our street
continued to grow, though not to excess like elsewhere
streets which compete to attract gawking traffic jams.
This household consisting of an old agnostic
and a Krishnamurti-admiring Jew
wasnıt lighting up for the season.
Still, Hanukkah, a family tradition she reaches
high to the back of the crockery cupboard and lifts
down her minimalist glass candelabrum.
Its nine little sockets require candles
of rare skinniness, and we shop around in vain.
We have only enough for the eighth day.
Besides, drawing attention to themselves as Jewish
has never been her familyıs style. But a drive through town
to glimpse the new giant civic menorah
reclusive decades give way to a coming-out
gas-fed flames trembling in the evening wind,
roaring steadily as the nine flames flare
Yes, her own menorah shall be seen:
perched in the front window, lit at sundown.
(Krishnamurti would say: mere distraction.)
Come see them! Arenıt they beautiful!
Come see them from outside, from the road!
They can just be seen through the overgrown front garden.
She photographs them from the footpath,
and again inside, and poses her blonde dog,
our holy fool, beside the flames. Snap.
Slowly the candles are burning down to zero.
All this time scarcely a car or pedestrian passes.
None, I think, pauses.
28-30 December 2003.
- Max Richards, North Balwyn, Melbourne
posted 7am, Wednesday 31 December 2003
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