Hunk a Hunk a Burning Hanukkah

Five years ago the theme for Elizabeth's Crazy Little Thing in December was "Hunk a Hunk a Burning Hanukkah" and I wrote this for that show. Happy Hanukkah, folks!

Hunk a Hunk a Burning Hanukkah 

Lord almighty,
flames from the candles are rising 
Higher higher
for eight nights we'll bask in the glow 

Twirl, twirl, twirl 
Watching the dreidel gyre 
The children are playing 
Which way will it go? 

Our gifts we will admire
Eat latkes hot from the deep fryer 
Light up the evening sky
with the Menorah 

Ooh, ooh, ooh,
Our feelings of joy are arising 
Blessings we're naming 
After all grateful we're alive 
Thriving, thriving, thriving 
And nothing can daunt us
We know how to take a joke 
We laugh, feel fine 

'Cause we live for something higher 
Eat latkes hot from the deep fryer 
Light up the evening sky
with the Menorah 

Love coming closer
Family embraces for everybody 
Judas Maccabee
we will remember on this day 
Love being free
Share our way of believing 

Lord almighty,
We're all going to have our say 
'Cause we live for something higher 
Eat latkes hot from the deep fryer 
Light up the evening sky
with the Menorah
with the Menorah
Candles burning Menorah 

It's a hunk a hunk a burning Hanukkah
Join our hunk a hunk a burning Hanukkah
Loving that hunk a hunk a burning Hanukkah 
Bless our hunk a hunk a burning Hanukkah
For eight days a hunk a hunk a burning Hanukkah 
Latkes for a hunk a hunk a burning Hanukkah
Oh joy, a hunk a hunk a burning Hanukkah 


Elizabeth Harper
To the tune of Elvis Presley's "Burning Love"

So people who know me, or who have ever met me, know that I read a lot and think a lot and ideas stick with me and I like to talk about books I've read in conversation. It's like having a conversation with footnotes! I don't know if people are interested in what I read and think about, but just in case there are people who are interested, I'm trying something new, cautiously dipping my little toe into the water...blogging! Or blogging sort of. Basically I just want to tell people about books, and maybe sometimes what I'm thinking about.

I read Claudia Rankine's book Citizen: An American Lyric a couple of years ago, soon after it came out in 2014. But it has stayed with me. It's prose poetry. It's a moving, intimate description of the experience of being on the receiving end of racism and feeling how it affects you and the people you interact with, friends and strangers. Reading it is an adventure in empathy. Incidents are recounted along with internal, visceral, subjective reactions, thinking and questioning. The reader is taken on a journey of painful experiences accumulating into a kind of heaviness.

Here's a quote from the book:

"The world is wrong. You can't put the past behind you.
 It's buried in you; it's turned your flesh into its own cupboard."

So I'm recommending this book to you, and maybe there is someone in your life you would like to recommend it to. 

Love,

Elizabeth

Elizabeth Harper, Rich Experience and Friends Go to The Store