ON EL DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

by Catherine Gonick

spirits shed like gasses 

   from the bodies 

 

of our ancestors, 

   children, and others

 

we have loved 

   like to put on costumes 

     

adorn their bones

   wear jewels

 

and red flowers

  tune up guitars

 

They rush to gather

   at the elevator

 

press the button

  for the noosphere

 

that earth-space full

  of our continuing

 

thoughts, private

    and shared

And when the door opens

and the operator calls

 

      going down

      going up

 

      getting off

      getting on

 

the spirits know

  they can go anywhere

 

that we are thinking

  today of them

 

remembering and waiting 

  for them to join us

 

for a fiesta without borders

Catherine Gonick has published poetry in a wide range of literary journals including The New Verse News, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and forthcoming in The Orchards Poetry Journal, as well as in anthologies including Grabbed and Support Ukraine.  She works in a company that fights global warming.

DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

by Sister Lou Ella Hickman





streets and alleys flood with color
a confetti of noise
explodes into the night
yet we know all too well
the violence in the shadows
all we have left is our poverty
our fiesta
this is our courage
and we must dance—
it is in our blood


Sister Lou Ella Hickman is a member of the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament. She has been a teacher on all levels and she has worked in two libraries.  Presently she is a freelance writer as well as a spiritual director. Her poems and articles have been published in numerous magazines as well as a poem in After Shocks: Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events edited by Tom Lombardo and a poem in Down the Dark River edited by Philp Kolin. Her first book of poetry, she: robed and wordless, published by Press 53, was released September 1, 2015.