While Passing Away Poem by Joseph S. Josephides

Second of November in Mexico, day of souls*,
a feast making the life of Death hard and dull.
From the altar of our homes we carry the flame,
candles, flowers, tablecloths to stretch over graves,
we eat with the dead ones, play the guitar and sing,
we donate skull-sweeties, chocolate-bones to all,
we carry the coffins in the squares and we dance;
kisses and laughing move, also the love in bushes.

Cry not, my love; as you call me, I stand up and carry
his body with El Greco – like Duke of Orgath, brought
by the hands of St Augustine and St Stephen - light
becomes his panoply, it encloses the flake of his soul.

You decided to honour with dance the dead contender
as Nicocles did with contests for his father Evagoras,
Achilles for his friend Patroclos, Alexander for Ifestion.
So, you dance in front of him slowly, then like the air,
a whirlwind syrtaki, a prayer, a ladder of light to God;
and myron spread in the squares, the feast grew tufty.

Ernesto, you consumed yourself, wood for our fire,
oxygen for our muscles, rain for our thirst, you live.
Dum spiro spero, mourning doesn’t fit in your flight,
only for the drop of the objects and the symbols
cause your golden tooth endures the fire of your siege,
for Thetis helps Achilles’ soul leave for Euxine Pontus,
your seed fell in this sheet to sprout a new verse.


© JosephJosephides