Holy Thursday blues

 Holy Thursday blues


I travel back fifty years to an oratory

In severe Castile of wide horizons

Carried back by Holy Thursday chant

That rises into bluish Spanish skies. 


A plaintiff Easter chant that bears

The incensed echoes of one thousand years

Sung by young men in white surplices

Calling on the God of David and of Solomon. 


Salamanca was living off its history

It’s proud tradition quickly changing

As girls in jeans replace the novices

In black birettas and flowing cassocks. 


Franco lies dying somewhere in Madrid 

Catching his last breath while all around

Many catch their first and a country 

Begins to waken from its slumbers.  


Back in the seminary the young men

Proceed around the austere block

Pray Easter stations of the cross

In nineteen seventy five. 


The chant of centuries rises high

Above the cypresses in the suburbs

Ignored by men in noisy bars

Who worship at the altar 

Of the football team nearby. 

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