Ofrenda de Cempasuchil by Rodrigo Loman
(Marygold Offering for Día de los Muertos)

On the road to the cemetery
Marching steps grow heavier and sadder
Processions of musical notes
All ring with the glow of their candles

Flower music turns into fruit music
Baskets of shadow murmur with sound
Crosses of salt are spread over graves
To feed the dead with the earth’s bread

This offering of music flowers
From the crypt like the birth of birth
It lines the pathways with its golden glow
And flows past our reality into another

Suddenly sensation leaves the body
The dance is possessed by ghosts
It’s like bones are joyously dancing
And spirit feels itself in flesh again

We’ve all been made flesh by the music
Remembered by it and reanimated
Mixed into the melody of mortality
Stillness and the silence that sings