Tasty Church Windows (A Poem)

By Joyce Jacobo

[Author’s Note: Last Christmas, I made Church Window Cookies with my family. It was a recipe learned from a great-aunt, and although they were tasty, they also made me curious about their origins. As of yet, I haven’t been able to discover how they came to be. Perhaps someone here knows?]

Have you ever sampled church windows—

    the kind created from a mixture of melted chocolate chips

                                                                   butter

                                                           and pastel marshmallows?

Rolled into slim bundles with the aid of wax paper

     they emerge from refrigeration like yule logs

             afterwards sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar

                   then sliced into identical      round scenes

                        of chocolate frames

                               that surround colorful       pastel fragments

Much smaller than their namesake

                yet miraculous

                              in their own

                                         humble way 

                               ….and divine to taste

                                                 as a recipe passed along

                                                              from relatives remembered

                                                                       amid a season perfect

                                                                                for fond memories

Bonus: Another fond memory:

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