Good Friday, Better Saturday

Jesus ?  My word !  Oh my lord, it’s the boss…
I never expected to see you today –
Except perhaps hanging out up on your cross…
It’s funny, but when as a kid we would pray,
And Reverend Thomas instructed our eyes
To always be tight and respectfully shut,
I’d sneak them half-open and squint at your thighs,
Expecting you’d come down a moment and strut.
With no-one to see, would you take up the chance
To get down to stretch, and to smoke, and to dance ?
The words of the prayer were quite lost to my trance,
But you never showed even the hint you’re alive.
You hung just the same when we sipped on your blood,
And you looked down as glum when we learned of the Flood,
And seemed as remote when our prayer-books would thud,
And we mumbled or massacred hymn forty-five.

But anyway, never mind my reminiscence,
How long must it be since you came round my way ?
Somehow you faded in slow evanescence,
Your black and white certainties merging to grey.
And Reverend Thomas was no help explaining
The problem of evil or problem of gays,
Till finally, even my lifelong ingraining
Could not keep the wonder or stem the malaise.
But reading the papers, there’s plenty of good news:
From leprosy vaccines to movies and blues,
And juries and voting, and self-tapping screws –
Abandoned, alone, we learned how to be great.
I waited and waited back there in your church
For some word or some action to come from your perch,
But unheard my questions, and unseen my search.
Till now, when I find you, I find you too late.