Light the Festive Candles

By Aileen Lucia Fisher 1906–2002

(FOR HANUKKAH)

Light the first of eight tonight—

the farthest candle to the right.

Light the first and second, too,

when tomorrow's day is through.

Then light three, and then light four—

every dusk one candle more

Till all eight burn bright and high,

honoring a day gone by

When the Temple was restored,

rescued from the Syrian lord,

And an eight-day feast proclaimed—

The Festival of Lights—well named

To celebrate the joyous day

when we regained the right to pray

to our one God in our own way.

Aileen Fisher, “Light the Festive Candles” from Skip Around the Year (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1967). Copyright © 1967, 1985 by Aileen Fisher. Reprinted with the permission of Marian Reiner.

Source: The Random House Book of Poetry for Children (1983)

Biography

Poet Aileen Fisher was born in the town of Iron River, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Her mother, a former kindergarten teacher, instilled in her a love of poetry, and Fisher went on to be educated at the University of Chicago and the University of Missouri, where she earned a BA in journalism. After graduation she moved to Chicago, working in a placement bureau for women journalists and later as the director of the Women’s . . .

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