When Jesus Walked Across the Mississippi

It was early June
and the black folks
were steady chopping
with heavy hoes

and the heat rolled
down out of the heavens
like a plague from Egyptland
calluses and sweat

When Jesus walked again
September was getting late
and the children pulled
the heavy white bags

but long ago
the white roman soldiers
had laid his brown body down
and nailed him to a tree

and raised him back up
a white man’s Jesus
but one little boy
who doubted he would live

to see his seventh birthday
raised his eyes up
upon the river
and saw a Black Jesus
shining in the sun

and found his strength
to reach the end of the row
to reach the end of the day
to reach the end of life

when a bullet cut down
his freedom and he laid
like a brown bodied Jesus
in the delta mud

And Jesus walked across
that big muddy river
and took the boy home.