Pancakes

When I was a little girl

the Parish Priest would visit our home once a year,
always on Shrove Tuesday.

He would sit at our kitchen table
and eat my mother's pancakes until he could eat no more.

Now, a lifetime later,
I watch my daughter mix the batter

but it doesn't seem so very long ago,

that scrubbed pine table with the four little children

and the friendly priest who loved pancakes.