Mom loved Hot Cross Buns
but only on Easter morning
her grandmother Paulina
made them every year
it was tradition
I liked the white cross on them;
would have licked off each one
in the dozen , if allowed
but I wasn’t
Our Easter baskets, brought down
from the attic each year, looked different
with green grass, chocolate bunnies,
yellow chicks & brightly colored eggs
sitting atop jelly beans
One Allfather’s Egg served the family
very sweetly coconut with a bright
sunflower-yellow yolk in the center
all covered with thick chocolate
that was our tradition
we didn’t have grandparents
the night before, my brother Bob & I
mixed color tablets with stinky vinegar
in Mom’s coffee cups, intense colors
appeared like magic
a teaspoon dipped the cooked egg
into the cup, after we wrote our names
staking our claims, until the dozen were done
color mixing produced ugly gray eggs at the end
we created another tradition
when my kids came along, I experimented
with onion skins, dark yellow ones that
created their own design on the eggs,
deep red, beet juice for purple-ly pinks,
blueberries for blues, waxy crayons for
writing names
and the boys had to hunt for their eggs
in the morning, winning prizes for finding
the special eggs marked with a star
creating a new tradition
Arlene S. Bice © 2014
