THE DEATH OF THIS JESUS
The peach orchard was full, the green of the meadows
was quite rich this year, and the running brooks seemed
always to be teeming : rain was the particular sensation.
I was reading the newspaper in a casual way, the article
about this fellow they'd hung, rather nailed, to his gross
of wooden beams. I didn't get the entire story - it seems
they made him carry his own burden through the streets
of a town - you know, post office, veterinary office, a
clothing store and a pharmacy, all that stuff - the same
burden, the very same frame, on which they'd later hang
him. I guess many of the people knew him - it seemed a
large number had come, some to wail and cry, others to
slap and laugh at him, throw things, call his mother and
brother names. I don't know. It was warm out enough that
the photo was mostly shirtsleeves. Poor guy, having to
know all that - having to carry one's own death-rack on
your back through local streets where the neighbors
pillory you. Smug people too, I bet. What's it all like,
knowing that, yet knowing that, as well, there's nothing
you can do to get out of it if you're going to be true to
yourself. Like that crowd never was, never sought, to be.
Later that day, the story said, they did what they'd set
out to do - he was hammered to that cross, it was set
in place, and he - after some brute anguish, died. Then
oddly enough, the story went on about the skies opening
up, a vast yet refreshing rain falling, lightning and a
great roar, again once more, from this local sky.
What a story, and - I guess - what a guy.
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