LOS HUESOS
by Charles P. Ries
(the bones)
I sit with the dead tonight. I have
brought my father’s tobacco and
my grandfather’s beer. Between
their tombstones, I light a sparkler
and (with eyes open) imagine them
standing and dancing before me.
So I get up and dance with them,
turning, spinning, and falling to the
ground. As I catch my breath, I look
up to see their smiles shine down
like porcelain stars. They point at me
“There’s our boy, he’s come to
drink and smoke with us. He loves
the lost ones with a heart as big as
heaven and inhales our graves as if
they were fields of red roses.”
The beer widens my eyes, makes
the deep night opaque. Revealing
a tribe of dead lovers who protect
us from devils and demons, insuring
our first communions and last rites,
ready to welcome us back home
with cold soft hands.
The graveyard is full. The living
and their dearly departed sit in tight
family circles telling old stories that
recall ancestors whose names have
now been given to babies.
We pass funeral cards, rosaries, and
wedding rings among us - tiny monuments
to people whose portraits hang along the
stairs leading to the cellar where we make
our candles, crush hot peppers, and shed
our tears.
We slice lemon cake, eat chicken breasts,
and drink tequila in the Cemeterio de Santa
Rosa. The ghosts are all brown, except mine.
Pale faces who’ve passed over - German,
pot bellied, serious white people, who,
in life, had things to accomplish.
We sing and dance to all the dead gone.
Mock death and remember a cast of bit
players who slip into our dreams with
whispers just before dawn.
As I pour my tequila into the earth I see
their spirit mouths open and skeletons
rise to dance three feet above the ground.
White vapor swirling like clouds. Sweet
misty blankets that embrace the tombs
of my family.
May 3rd, 2007 at 8:42 am
This is a wonderful poem, brilliantly realised. On a subject like this, contact with the dead, it could so easily have ended up faux-mystical, but what keeps this amazing poem so firmly on the ground and so moving is its earthy imagery (beer, funeral cards, smoke, hands), and the sense that what the poem describes are real, loved people. It touches, I suppose, on what we hope for after death, a continual communion with our friends, and expresses this desire so memorably. Thank you, thank you, Charles P Ries
May 10th, 2007 at 5:10 am
Most family funerals in Ireland have this interesting mix of solemnity and mordant humour. Funerals, if preceded by overnight wakes (only in some rural parts nowadays), are social celebrations of life. There’s usuallysome drinking back in the home after the burial, or lots of chat in the local pub. My late brother asked for a jazz band to welcome the cortege at the approach to the country graveyard. It was a startling departure from custom, but his friends appreciated it, and the priest didn’t object, as the Mass had been said in the usual manner.
May 11th, 2007 at 12:26 am
Excellent Poem!
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