#4

Day of the Dead (11/6/16)

Always
when the wind blows like this
and the leaves
are giving themselves
to a new life,
I am here.
Kneeling.
Holding the blue rock
to my chest.
Bending over in the woods
in mourning.

Melancholy bats at my ears
My chest curls into
the tight fist
of the snake.
I try to hear my heart beat
beneath those cold
slippery coils.

We feed them
by candle light.
We say their names.
The ones we have lost
all of them.

They were glorious, and,
how they suffered,
and, hurt us too.

The stories come
with flocks of silver-black Grackles
mounting in the trees outside
the window.
there are crumbs for everyone.
We must feed the dead.

-Llora H. Kressmann