Contemporary DC-area poet and musician Cliff Bernier wrote a series of poems that he would read alongside a jazz ensemble in northern Virginia. The Day of the Dead has a great rhythm and feel.
This arrangement is for show choirs and similar groups with a rhythm and horns section.
The piece starts out with a jazz feel, starting and stopping before breaking into a bossa nova groove, yielding to a lively latin dance beat to the end.
The text is from "The Day of the Dead" from The Silent Art by Clifford Bernier, (Gival Press, Arlington, VA, 2011), copyright 2011 by Clifford Bernier.
Performed here by the Rocky Mountain Chamber Singers - Virtual Choir.
Day of the Dead
The world is a toad floating among lilies.
Order coffee, tequila, enchiladas, and chocolate.
Light candles, hang portraits, burn incense.
Spill the light of of the day and the rain on the earth;
years are a bundle of reeds.
Return from the shadows, cross the new river,
set your altar with marigolds and lace.
Feast on pumpkins, grapes, rice and beans.
take your seat at the table
on the Day of the Dead.
ii
Wind that stirs the stars, blue and cold,
carry your loved ones home for the holidays.
Hold death as a mirror, be seen as you are:
bones, marionettes, cartoons, comics,
calaveras, coffins, masks,
pantomimes of importance in a traveling show,
illusions of substance in a transient stream.
skeletons, impresarios, tamales pounded from flesh.
Welcome back. freshen up.
on the Day of the Dead.
iii
Eat the bread of the dead, pick the flower of the dead.
dance the dance of the dead
on the Day of the Dead
Drink mescal with the dead, camp out with the dead,
sing dirges with the dead
on the Day of the Dead
Mariachi with the dead, laugh with the dead,
marry with the dead
on the Day of the Dead.