After the painting by Manuel Baldemor

 

 

Recent leave-takings still hurt many,

The pages of social media are full of obits:

A distant cousin here, a friend’s friend there

But the worst are those whose familiar love 

Still bind us but was suddenly cut by fate―

Accident or illness, the call of the void.

The darkness of the void is what we  would

Erase with light, in our Undas of rice cakes

And melted candles, gin and pulutan 

Over the nicho and tombstones, cleaned

Of the year’s growth of talahib and bramble,

The marble lapidas shiny: How quaint 

And comforting the candlelight and bright-

Colored candies: Perhaps we could say

Our colonial relatives from halfway ‘round

The world share our half-macabre, half-nostalgic 

Revelry: In the Dia de Muertos we are 

Nangangaluluwa with Mexico: By way 

Of the Galleon Trade, the radiant cloak 

Of Our Lady of Guadalupe, we skip a step or 

Two with the marching mariachi, 

In the taruk of our corrido, in their comparsa

Or paso doble: For our dead we make a toast, 

We sing haranas among the grinning calaveras.

 

 

Marne Kilates

31 October 2021

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