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MY NEW AUTHOR'S SITE, KATHRYNSTRIPLINGBYER.COM, THAT I MYSELF SET UP THROUGH WEEBLY.COM, IS NOW UP. I HAD FUN CREATING THIS SITE AND WOULD RECOMMEND WEEBLY.COM TO ANYONE INTERESTED IN SETTING UP A WEBSITE. I INVITE YOU TO VISIT MY NEW SITE TO KEEP UP WITH EVENTS RELATED TO MY NEW BOOK.


MY NC POET LAUREATE BLOG, MY LAUREATE'S LASSO, WILL REMAIN UP AS AN ARCHIVE OF NC POETS, GRADES K-INFINITY! I INVITE YOU TO VISIT WHEN YOU FEEL THE NEED TO READ SOME GOOD POEMS.

VISIT MY NEW BLOG, MOUNTAIN WOMAN, WHERE YOU WILL FIND UPDATES ON WHAT'S HAPPENING IN MY KITCHEN, IN THE ENVIRONMENT, IN MY IMAGINATION, IN MY GARDEN, AND AMONG MY MOUNTAIN WOMEN FRIENDS.




Wednesday, November 2, 2011

EL DIA DE LOS MUERTOS



  
Frida Kahlo


 El Dia de los Muertos

In Frida’s house, it was every  day.
She doted on skeletons,
contraptions of wicker and colored paper strung up
with twine, letting one hang alongside her bed
and another recline on her canopy.  Mis companeros,
she called them.  Compadres.
She’d stared back at Death,
nose to nose,
frente a frent ˙e,
for so long she called him
El Viejo.  Just part of
the household.  She knew he would
nudge her too soon and say Lista?
Esta lista, mi'jita?
No wonder she scrawled
on the last written page of her diary,
I hope the leave-taking is joyful
and I hope never to come back.

Forty years later,
I almost believe her.
It’s November second again,
and again I imagine her grinding
her teeth on those last words,
(despite being nothing but ashes
Diego sealed into a clay pot)
still trying too hard  to resist the fiesta
that’s dawning, its candy skulls hawked
from the corners, the jiggety-jig
of the bone-men in every mercado.

At nightfall, the cities of graves
with their pink vaults and blue stucco archways
will come back to life with the pictures of lost children,
wives, fathers, husbands, while flowers cascade
over gravestones where, nestled in baskets,
pan dulce and still warm tortillas
the living once loved to hold inside their mouths
keep the taste of life fresh for the dead
to come back to,  if only as wind playing
over the grass, blowing
out every  candle
before moving on again,
not having answered the question
we’re left to ask, begging the  darkness
that takes us,  Adonde?  Adonde?


from Catching Light, LSU Press



Candied skulls on sale in Toluca in the days leading up to
El Dia de Los Muertos
The link will take you to a great site on the culture and history of Mexico, with some stunning photos of El Dia de los Muertos celebrations.



2 comments:

Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillow said...

Adonde, yes indeed. I really love this magnificent poem and how you get inside the spirit of what is celebrated and played out on this day in certain parts of the world. Here in Spain, where I live, November 1st, el día de los santos or el día de los muertos is still an important occasion. Spaniards tend to stay close to their dead and to keep their dead close by in every way. And the "cities of graves" did indeed "come back to life" here with droves of families streaming to the cemetery, with photos, food, flowers, as they tried to keep the "taste of life fresh for the dead to come back to" (great line), while they help us season our own lives with that question ... adonde, adonde

Maggie Blue, Investigation said...

I love Frida Kahlo too. Remembering her helps me live on sometimes. I wish she'd lived longer myself.
Maggie