Passover ended last night but this morning there's still a lump of matzah in my stomach and the taste of dry matzah crumbs on my lips It's like when I leave the beach and come home to find grains of sand stuck between my toes and dried salt from the sea on my legs You know what's funny? Not funny ha-ha but funny strange? I can still see my ancestors marching in the desert toward freedom even though I've returned to the world I left behind for eight days. They're part of a long line of people walking through history even after the holiday ends, And in the line I can see walking all the people who I love— Mom and Dad and Grandpa Harry and Grandma Gussie and Grandpa Israel, Uncle Nate and Aunt Alberta, Aunt Sylvia, Aunt Judy, and all the rest of my family who have gone to their eternal rest. The wind covers their footprints in the sand so I can't follow them, can only watch as they disappear for another year, and I watch them go, one by one, Mom's face turning toward me as she passes like the face of the moon I can't tell if she's smiling or sad, and then, like the moon at dawn, her face fades from view and she's gone, along with all the others, leaving only the memory of the sea and the taste of matzoh until next year when they'll come back walking out of the desert to join us again.
Bruce Black is the author of Writing Yoga (Rodmell Press/Shambhala) and editorial director of The Jewish Writing Project. He received his BA from Columbia University and his MFA from Vermont College. His work has appeared in Elephant Journal, Blue Lyra Review, Tiferet Journal, Hevria, Poetica, Reform Judaism, The Jewish Literary Journal, Mindbodygreen, Yogi Times, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and elsewhere. He lives in Sarasota, FL.
