HAPPY DEAD DAYS! (Lorna Dee Cervantes Reads Poem for Ofelia at CU-Boulder Tomorrow Eve)

My favorite holiday. I wasn't able to participate in the altár building this year as my son has come down with a bad flu. (Send occillococcinum to Mexico; light to mail, expensive for them to buy if they could find it; very effective for flu; good for kids as it's homeopathic.) The altár is dedicated to Ofélia Viramontes, a CU Chicana administrator who passed this past summer. I hope to be leaving soon to buy a salmon to stuff for my Dead, or, if I can't find that, some seafood for a Vera Cruzana, black beans, squash, corn, camote for the Africana in me. Flowers. The CU campus has supplied the marigolds this year. Funny, that. Thanks to the young woman at McGuckin's (support local business) for the hint on the location. And for assuaging any guilt about "stealing flowers": "No, really! You'll be doing a service by picking them, they'll come back stronger." (like us) She knew just what I wanted them for -- Do you know how rare that is in Boulder? Thank you! I hope she comes to my reading at the event this wednesday evening, tomorrow night 7-9 at the CU-Boulder Museum of Natural History, First Floor, on the left, for the Dia de los Muertos celebration with Aztec Danzantes, music by Brenda Romero, Ellen Klaver, David Young Esquibel; remembrance and poetry among the many altares open for viewing today. I'll be writing a new poem for Ofélia -- she was a new, and now ever, friend. She walked the path to integrity.

GRACIAS A LA VIDA! Happy Dead.