El Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead Ones)

[Audi Lee]

Are you familiar with this holiday? In Mexico and S. America, this is a wonderful, and very big celebration, meant to honor all of their deceased loved ones. I want to write some passages from a favorite book by Ray Bradbury "The Halloween Tree", about this special Day...

"Far off on that dark island, there was a prickle of guitar sound. A single candle was lit in the graveyard. Somewhere, someone blew a musical sound on a flute. another candle was lit among the tombstones. Someone sang a single word of a song. A third candle was touched to life by a flaming match. And the faster the boat moved, the more guitar notes sounded and the more candles were lit high among the mounds on the stony hills. A dozen, a hundred, a thousand candles flared until it looked as if the great Andromeda star cluster had fallen out of the sky and tilted itself to rest here in the middle of almost-midnight Mexico.....

The boys reached the low wall of the graveyard and then the huge lacework iron gates. They took hold of the iron rungs and stared in. "Why", gasped Tom. "I have never seen the like!"For now they knew why the town was empty. Because the graveyard was full. By every grave was a woman kneeling to place gardenias or azaleas or marigolds in a frame upon the stone. By every grave knelt a daughter who was lighting a new candle or lighting a candle that had just blown out. By every grave was a quiet boy with bright brown eyes, and in one hand a small papier-mache funeral parade glued to a shingle, and in the other hand a papier-mache skeleton head which rattled with rice or nuts inside......

For on every grave were plates of cookies shaped like funeral priests or skeletons or ghosts, waiting to be nibbled by - living people? Or by ghosts that might come along toward dawn, hungry and forlorn? For no one knew. No one said. And each boy inside the graveyard, next to his sister and mother, put down the miniature funeral on the grave. And they could see the tiny candy person inside the tiny wooden coffin placed before a tiny altar with tiny candles. And around the tiny coffin stood tiny altar boys with peanuts for heads and eyes painted on the peanut shells. And before the altar stood a priest with a cornnut for a head and a walnut for a stomach. And on the altar was a photograph of the person in the coffin, a real person once; remembered now. "Better, and still better" whispered Ralph.

"Cuevos!" sang a far voice up the hill. Inside the graveyard, voices echoed the song. Leaning against the graveyard walls, some with guitars in their hands or bottles, were the men of the village. "Cuevos de los Muertos-" sang the faraway voice. "Cuevos de los Muertos", sang the men in the shadows inside the gate. "Skulls", translated Tom, "The skulls of the dead". "Skulls, sweet sugar skulls, sweet candy skulls, the skulls of the dead ones", sang the voice coming close now. And down the hill, treading softly in shadow, came a hunch-backed Vendor of Skulls. "No, not hunched -" said Tom, half aloud. "A whole load of skulls on his back", cried Ralph. "Sweet skulls, sweet white crystal sugar candy skulls", sang the vendor, his face hidden under a vast sombrero...."

Have a sweet celebration! Love, Audi