It’s a bad Good Friday, snow and mud
and mongrels in the road. Today’s sky said
He’d weigh a ton tonight. A priest
unhooks the hands while Flatheads chant
ninety pounds of spices on the skin.
Another One, not the one they took down from
the cross, is lugged by six old Indians
around the room, five following with songs.
On a real Good Friday, warm and moon,
they’d pack Him outside where bright
fires burn. Here or there, the dialect
burns on their tongues. Elbow joints enflame
and still they crawl
nailed hours to the tomb. For men
who raced young April clouds and won, the pace
of reverence is grim. Their chanting
bangs the door of any man’s first cave.
Mongrels have gone home. We slop
toward the car. Every year
a few less live who know the Salish hymns.
The mud is deeper. Snow has turned to rain.
We were renegade when God had gills.
We never change. Still, the raw sound
of their faces and the wailing unpretentious
color of their shawls——