Communing With a Dirt Splattered Statue of The Lord in a Field Near the Barn

Look here, he said, gesturing
delicately at his own chest,
and all of us looked at his
mud-smeared garments and cursed
those who had not washed him and
desperately searched for deeper
symbolism in the position of his hands.

I watched a tear form in his eye
and wondered if we had gone
so far afield that we
could no longer understand
even the most basic
of his ideas, the very tenets
of his, of our faith and love.

[originally posted as a comment to Dustin Neal's poem "stone jesus parable" at Magnapoets which, in turn, was based on a photograph by Whitney posted here.]