note to "My Father's Poem"

note: The following was written 1 hour before my father's memorial last sunday which was attended by over a hundred people (I can't estimate crowds, but judging by the number of people left over without the 81 candles which were lit in his memory) where I presented it to my brother's wooden flute music. I had been thinking about the poem since his death, aware that other than juvenilia*, I had never written about my father. I wasn't able to read or write anything for the Mural Arts festival - it was very emotional for me, such a perfect day and all. But I had been thinking of the line over & over that I knew had to be in the poem: "Time is Art. Art is Time" which is what he lived. Finally, on sunday morning, after fidgeting over it like a jittery dualist, I heard his voice in my head, "Well, ..." (here, I paused in the intro to the poem knowing the people who knew my father & just asked the audience to complete the phrase, which they did) "do it." And I did. After laughing.

Here's the poem as it was read on Sunday, June 12, at the Memorial Ceremony Celebration for "visionary" Visual Artist, Luis Cervantes, at the Precita Valley Community Center in San Francisco. (oops, I'll have to use lines to make the spacing until I'm more html literate)


*
"You were barbells under the sink,
a bucket of mussels on the kitchen floor,
a swimming catfish in the kitchen sink,
bleu cheese dared on a cracker ...".

~ "L. D. Cervantes" circa 1968 (age 14?)