Midnight Ofrenda Waltz

I lay the photographs in a silver line

By marigold embers and a glass of wine

Your name on my tongue like a prayer I keep

Soft as the hour when the whole house sleeps

I fold the flowers in a circle of gold

Each petal a story the dark can't hold

Promises kept in the candlelight

Blink like fire

Through the stitched up night

We build the ofrenda hand by hand

From the dust of laughter and the breath of land

I hear you near in the turning air

In every rhythm tied with care

We build the ofrenda side by side

And you learn to dance with the ones who died

'Til memory lifts me

Warm and slow

And leads me where the dawn will grow

The clarinet curls like a whispered thread

Tracing the footsteps of what

I follow the waltz where the shadows part

With your old moonlight inside my heart

Who will be a friend of hand by hand?

Come the dust of laughter and the breath of land

I hear you near in the turning air

In every urban tide with care

We'd build the old friend up side by side

And I learned to dance with the ones who died

Your memory lifts me warm and slow

And leads me where the dawn will grow

If love is a doorway, then grief is the key

That opens the room where you wait for me

So I do not fear the long black sea

When your quiet face returns in my

We build the ofrenda hand by hand

From the dust of last year in a breathless land

I hear you near in the turning air

In every rabbit tied with clear

We build the ofrenda side by side

And I learn to dance with the ones who died

'Til the first light silvering the floor

Tells me love is memory and more

Photographs glowing, flowers in flame

Promises kept of a living name

I bow to the night then rise and go

Dancing with memory until dawn's soft glow