Hye Holiday Gathering - Elaine Harootunian Reardon

Gram prepared paklava and bourma
without a written recipe. Like a newly
hatched bird I’d wait for bits of sweetness
to fall, walnuts covered with cinnamon,
honey mixed with lemon. I stood on a stool
to watch. Before me, Hrpesima, Anoush, and Mariam had
mixed the dough and rolled it by hand, but when I was six
we bought paper thin phyllo from Sevan’s Market in Watertown.

Gram melted butter in the cast iron skillet.
Don’t let the butter sizzle–too hot!
She mixed sugar and cinnamon in a bowl for me to add
then got out the heavy rolling pin and I crushed
walnuts beneath its weight. Gram said be sure
the nuts are ground fine! Grind them again—
still too big. I pushed the rolling pin hard against
walnuts, then we mixed in sugar and cinnamon .

We took one layer of phyllo at a time,
brushed with melted butter, sprinkled in nuts,
then rolled as quickly as we could.
Finally, using the sharpest blade,
we sliced the fragile rolls and
placed them on the cookie sheet.
Hers were straight and long,
mine crinkled, like thin fabric.

I have the recipe still, yellowed with age,
thin and tattered, like phyllo dough,
filled with handed down memories from those
who sat at this table before me —Shushan, Bedros,
Kevont, Katchador, Sitanoush cooking and eating
to honor Kharpet, our homeland no longer on the map.
I’m the old one now. When I cook,
grandmother’s voice follows me, step by step.

Originally published by Flutter Press in Elaine’s chapbook Look Behind You 2019

Elaine lives and writes next to a forest stream in Western Massachusetts. Her first chapbook, The Heart is a Nursery For Hope, won first honors from Flutter Press . Her second chapbook, Look Behind You, was published in late 2019. Her writing is published in a variety of journals  such as Pensive Journal and The Commons. http://elainereardon.wordpress.com.