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How to Make a Mazurka
by Maja Trochimczyk



            For my grandparents, Stanislaw and Marianna Wajszczuk,
            who could play and bake their mazurkas like nobody else.



Take one cup of longing
for the distant home that never was
One cup of happiness that danced
with your shadows on the walls
of Grandpa's house, while he played
a rainbow of folk tunes
on his fiddle, still adorned
with last wedding's ribbons

             mix it - round and round to dizziness

Stir in some golden buzz of the bees
in old linden tree. Add the ascent
of skylark above spring rye fields,
singing praises to the vastness of blue

             mix it - round and round to dizziness

Add chopped walnuts, figs, dates
and raisins. Pour in some juice
from bittersweet grapefruit
freshly picked in your garden

             mix it - round and round to dizziness


Add dark grey of rainclouds in Paris
that took Chopin back to the glimmer
of candles in an old cemetery
on the evening of All Souls Day

             mix it - round and round to dizziness

Bake it in the cloudless heat of your exile
Cool before serving. Do not forget to sprinkle
with a dollop of sparkling crystals,
first winter's snowflakes at midnight

 

 

 


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