Poem Three: The Yellow Christ
After "The Yellow Christ" Paul Gauguin, 1889
His arms cannot rest
because they are nailed to wood.
His arms cannot reach out
because they are nailed to wood.
He cannot see because his eyes
are closed to withstand the pain.
In the fall of this scene,
bodies of yellow hills
become human, longing
desire for touch, they
reach for one another.
His arms cannot reach out
because they are nailed.
They are bleeding.
The earth is the same color
as his skin.
His heart is flooded
with blood.
He is the blossoming aria
of a blushing cherry tree.
His arms cannot reach out
because they are stilled by anti-matter.
The gravity that will take him,
will tear leaves down with him,
will take down tall buildings,
will tear the very stars from the sky.
The man in the background
turns his back, disappears
over a stone wall. He does
not look back.
His eyes are the same color
as water. His chest is the same color
as water. Will these fields yield
bread?
The women bow their heads.
Their hands become floods.
His arms cannot reach out
because they are nailed to wood.
Anti-gravity is inhuman.
He is the son of God.
Would violence be a proper
representation of what God
would want to show us
so we can learn to be good?
He is the same color
of wheat in the fields.
Would violence be a proper
punishment, would the piercing
arrow become the wine
for the many?
His arms cannot reach out
because they are nailed to wood.
God told me we are all
as feeling as wood.