Firefighter in Autumn

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FiremanPost

As the leafy color grows more beautiful daily, I post this autumn illustration, one of a series I painted for the book The Survivor Tree by Cheryl Aubin, based on the true story of a tree that survived the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center.

For more on this book, please see The Survivor Tree.

CakeAutLeaves2Anne


 

Even the Dead Are Rising Up to Dance

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In honor of Día de los Muertos, here are our skull bread and bones (although they look rather like dog biscuits) and the bilingual song by Tish Hinojosa that we sing every year after the lighting of the candles. For more on this celebration, and the recipe for anise-flavored Pan de Muerto, please see Día de los Muertos.

SkullBread11

Hasta Los Muertos Salen a Bailar

La luna llena acaba de llegar
El otro mundo empieza a despertar
Bajo las sombras vamos a cantar
Hasta los muertos salen a bailar.
Al camposanto, hay que celebrar
Porque esta noche todo es embrujar
Y el coyote empieza a aullar
Hasta los muertos salen a bailar.

Chorus

Flores, canciones, papel de colores
Olores de antojos que traen
Quienes recuerdan amores, santos, pecadores
Allí vamos a estar.
A
The moon is full of something on the rise
The other world is opening its eyes
Out in the graveyard, we will sing a stance
Even the dead are rising up to dance.

Chorus

Love songs and flowers and papers, bright colors
And smells of the food that we bring
There we remember the saints and the sinners
This night with them we will sing.
A
Los embrujados salen a bailar
Y La Llorona mira donde está
Ai con la momia enruedada va
Hasta los muertos salen a bailar.
A
Los abuelitos salen a bailar
Tíos y tías salen a bailar
Hasta monjitas van de allá pa’ca
Hasta los muertos salen a bailar.
A
La luna llena acaba de llegar
El otro mundo empieza a despertar
Out in the grave yard we will sing a stance
Even the dead are rising up to dance.
A
Hasta los muertos salen a bailar.
Even the dead are rising up to dance.

—Tish Hinojosa

When Autumn Came

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Nov1&2

This is the way that autumn came to the trees:
it stripped them down to the skin,
left their ebony bodies naked.
It shook out their hearts, the yellow leaves,
scattered them over the ground.
Anyone could trample them out of shape
undisturbed by a single moan of protest.
The birds that herald dreams
were exiled from their song,
each voice torn out of its throat.
They dropped into the dust
even before the hunter strung his bow.
Oh, God of May have mercy.
Bless these withered bodies
with the passion of your resurrection;
make their dead veins flow with blood again.
Give some tree the gift of green again.
Let one bird sing.

 

—Faiz Ahmed Faiz, translated by Naomi Lazard

Yahrzeit3Filomena