Day of the Dead Oaxaca 2004

It’s strange, really,
being from the USA,
to see
the people around
and feeling their life
swirling through me,
unlike the zombie mall.

I feel the call of the cemetery.
I am wearing the black clothes already.
The smell of flowers haunts me.
The bougainvillea that grow so bright
Are brilliant phantoms
In the light, so even day seems as night
livid with shadows of lives barely glimpsed,
But, at least, there have been moments,
The place is teeming with moments,
….how many to build that church there,
in seventy five years?

On the day of the dead, the ancestors
are said to come back…the family’s door
Is marked with flowers
so the dead can find them.