On Good Friday, Jazz, Winton Marsalis & Abrego-Garcia

 On Good Friday, Jazz, Winton Marsalis & Abrego Garcia

Then and now, malice & cruelty 

keep company with law & justice.

When I was a child and first heard

the story of Good Friday, I thought

it horrible, horrifying. 

I wanted to stamp my feet & block 

my ears.  Was I expected to imitate 

Jesus?  Was it, is it, right, meekly 

to accept injustice & torture?  

Doesn’t that strengthen injustice & evil!?

The teller had lavishly highlighted

all the details of Jesus’s crucifixion, 

dramatically, maliciously.   I thought 

I might vomit.  “Good” Friday?!?!  

Wasn’t irony supposed to be clever?

I don’t now remember how my

Sunday School Teacher dealt

with my outraged objections, 

but I know that on Morning Joe today

I heard marvelous Winton Marsalis

recounting the impact of a jazz

festival upon the young participants,

how together they stayed open to riffs

from peers and wove them into the 

fabric of their unique, ex temporized, 

musical compositions.  I thought about 

my friend Peter’s poem wishing 

he could write as freely as he could 

improvise on his harmonica.  That 

poem taught me a lot about jazz and 

about Peter’s scope.  But I’m still 

thinking of Jesus on the cross, and I 

just can’t/won’t acquiesce to balancing 

out the human ugliness of Good Friday 

with that Resurrection.  However,  I 

have always loved singing along with

an all-stops-out-organ blasting

the Easter hymn, Christ the Lord 

Is Risen Today, Alleluia!    In my 

New-for-Easter-Patent-Leather-Mary-

Janes, I could stand tall, put ecstasy 

nto every Alleluia!  just as our teacher 

had requested.   But that was then, this 

is now, and Morning Joe has moved on 

to reports that at least one recent migrant 

deported by The Trump Gang had been 

a mistake.  No proof of wrong doing, 

no trial, but the innocent Abrego-Garcia, 

father & husband, has been deported 

into the cruel custody of El Salvador’s 

worst prison.  No Alleluias from me 

this year!  Trump has done NOTHING 

to get Garcia home!  Back to the Streets!    

Make More Signs! And Pray for those 

farther & farther away… 

Disappeared.

—Sef, 4/18/2025