GOOD FRIDAY
According to tradition, today, Good Friday,
we commemorate the death of Christ.
I am in the garden at home.
It’s a sunny afternoon.
I hear distant, solemn bells.
Christ is walking along the streets,
while the executioners are cruelly whipping his back.
The most pious mourning women,
barefooted and in chains, sing hymns.
On a day like today, when I was a child,
festive songs couldn’t be sung, of course.
The good people who fornicate all year round,
who are weeping today for the crucified Christ,
used to go to the mountains to pick up thyme:
that tiny flower with its earthly perfume.
Christ was lying in his tomb,
and darkness reigned in the world.
I shouldn’t smoke. There are no newspapers.
A blackbird is singing among the branches.
Eliot, that English poet I look up to so much,
turned an Ash Wednesday into a book.
Eliot was a banker, used to wear a stiff collar and a tie,
and walked with a black hat along the City.
I am from southern Europe,
from a sun-kissed ancient world,
with vineyards, olive trees, and red, rugged earth.
(We might not be so poor lately with euros.)
But barefoot feet come to mind,
I’m thinking of the white ankles of the pious ladies,
like pale roses beneath their long tunics,
compassionate snow in darkness.
I’m thinking of passing flying years,
gathering Good Fridays, always heavy on the muscles.
The sky is still blue, and the mountains a serene violet.
Meanwhile, Christ is resting in the icy silence of the tomb.
And tonight, on the second channel, an Argentine band,
led by a certain Reinaldo Ritz,
with a swaggering demeanor,
will play soothing friendly jazz music,.
And Christ is in the sepulcher.
And I, burdened with sins.
The world spins, and with each turn, I grow older and older.
Shall I not weep?
But blackbirds are singing.
And almond trees have fruited and blossoms emerge
from orange trees and apple trees.
Green, the tendrils and tender vine shoots climb.
And trumpets sound. Not the biblical ones.
It’s Dixieland, on channel 2.
And Christ is in the sepulcher.
Eliot! We are lost. Holy weeks
with crepe on balconies.
Lenten abstinence.
And Dixieland. And Christ in the sepulcher.
What shall we do, Eliot, if you and I were raised so differently,
full of respect and fear?
Blackbirds are singing, Dixieland too,
Eliot! Eliot! You and I, astonished.
And people are laughing.
And Christ in the sepulcher.
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