Preparations

autumn night

dashed to bits

in conversation

- Basho

Every year Deborah and I host a party for the Dia de los Muertos, where we bring together friends to drink, eat, and recite verse in honor of a dead poet.  Tomorrow night is the big event, and the honoree will be Basho (died 1694), so haiku is the order of the day (or night), and Deborah and I are already hard at work, okay maybe not hard, and not exactly work, but we are busily preparing for the event.

First order of business is decorations, and the almost incandescent papel picado banners are strung across the living and dining rooms, the dining room table pushed back to the window (make room for dancing), and the rug rolled up and stowed away.  In the living room we have the ofrenda, or altar, in honor of the deceased (see above), which this year is sort of an east meets west melange, Guadalupe and Lao Tzu, calaveras and paper lanterns.  Basho would, I think, have liked it, and if not, oh well.

We'll be drinking sake in his honor anyhow, and he'll have a cermonial cupful in front of his portrait to allow him to partake in the festivities.  For those who can't stomach sake, there will be Japanese beer to wash down the green chile chicken posole, the cashews with cayenne pepper and rosemary, the pistachio encrusted brie drizzled with local honey, and whatever other goodies we dream up between now and then.

Costumes are encouraged, but not required, which is a good thing for me, because I am not so much into the costume thing.  Still, this year we floated the idea to come dressed as the written word, however people decide to interpret that.  For me it'll be a Bukowski t-shirt with a Love is a Dog From Hell sentiment, or something less conspicuously but nonetheless totally uninspired.

It's why we make this a day of the dead party, instead of a Halloween party.  Halloween blew up for me quite young, and I've never seen it in quite the same way since.  When I was in sixth grade, figure eleven years old, I did the local candy crawl around our neighborhood in Worcester, Massachusetts.  Now I can't help the fact that I was tall for my age, and I know that it was a little unnerving for the neighborhood parents to be looking eye to eye with some oddly dressed thug (like I said, I was never very good at this).  But c'mon.  Eleven years old and people are refusing me candy, and saying things like, "aren't you a little old for this?"  It was my last ride on the merry-go-round.  After that I relegated my Halloween celebrations to taking my kid sister around while she begged; sometimes the householders would give me a Snickers bar out of pity.  But I've never been much into costumes after that.

Anyhow, now one of my favorite parts of the preparations is finding a photo (in this case a portrait, seeing as Basho was about a hundred and fifty years early for a camera), and printing out an eight by ten to use on the ofrenda.  Every year I use the frame that my high school picture came in, with my "could I have ever been that young" portrait still in the frame, but covered over by the year's honoree.  I like the idea of rubbing up against great poets, hoping perhaps, that some inspiration will descend on me for having shared such an intimate space with (in order): Pablo Neruda, Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, Walt Whitman, Elizabeth Bishop, Robinson Jeffers, Emily Dickinson, and now, Basho.

But it's high to time to get back on task, brush up on my Basho biographical details, and be ready to give a little historical perspective, as well as deciding which of his thousand or so haiku to share.  Time, as well, to dig up a few of my own.  When the event is over we'll post pictures, and maybe even add a link to some audio files of some of the haiku.  Maybe.

Where in the hell did I hide that Bukowski t-shirt?

on the Chinese gable

light of the setting sun thins

to evening coolness

- Basho