We gather outdoors this somber Friday
where jays and crows compete
with scolding cries. The priest
has walked a path around the garden
where we meet for our devotions,
preferring trees and breeze 
to an indoor chapel. He has designated
places for our group of twelve or so
to stop and imagine the progress of
salvation. This juniper for Judas’s kiss.
A pinon pine for Pilate’s helpless shrug.
And by the final surrender into death–
at a stopping point so unremarkable
we hear the thunder,
the ripping of the temple veil–
we have slipped out of time and space
so that the dusty path we walk leads 
to Jerusalem.