Present

At light speed, God speed,
time collapses into now, so that
we may see Christ's wounds as
still bleeding, his torso,
that ready sponge, still
absorbing our vice, our toxic shame.

He is still being pierced
by every hateful nail
we hammer home. In this
Golgotha moment his body--
chalice for the dark weeping
of the whole world-- brims,

spilling over as his lifeblood
drains. His dying into earth
begins the great reversal--
as blood from a vein leaps
into the needle, so with his rising,
we surge into light.

-- Luci Shaw (1928- ), American poet, from What the Light Was Like, 2006