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POEM:
Passover Matzah
April 7, 2006    Episode no. 932
Read This Week's November 7, 2008
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Gallery - 'from art of blessing the day: poem with a jewish theme

Distribution of matzah. Hispano-Moresque Haggadah. Castile, c.1300. British Library.
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Read a poem about Passover matzah by Marge Piercy:

Flat you are as a door mat
and as homely.
No crust, no glaze, you lack
a cosmetic glow.
You break with a snap.
You are dry as a twig
split from an oak
in midwinter.
You are bumpy as a mud basin
in a drought.
Square as a slab of pavement,
you have no inside
to hide raisins or seeds.
You are pale as the full moon
pocked with craters.

What we see is what we get
honest, plain, dry
shining with nostalgia
as if baked with light
instead of heat.
The bread of flight and haste
In the mouth you
promise, home.

From THE ART OF BLESSING THE DAY: POEMS WITH A JEWISH THEME (Knopf, 2000)

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