Tomato | Meditation On The Cross | 1

I sliced a tomato, and,
Surrounded by spilt juice,
The cross.

The cross is messy,
Physically –
Smeared in blood, yes,
But in shit, and piss,
And vomit too,
For the crucified body empties itself
In whatever ways it can.

But the cross is messy
In other ways. The cross
Is messy
Philosophically –
For there is no greater proof
Of our need for God
Than deicide.

And yet, like pips
In the juice of a tomato,
In the very midst of the mess,
The hope
Of new life;
That’s where such hope is
Found.

The cross is messy
Theologically –
We have no words,
No doctrines,
That can adequately describe
What defies attempts to be
Described, delineated,
Explained.

And yet, like
The tomato – a thing
Our intellect tells us is fruit,
Our instinct tells us is vegetable –
My failure to
Summise the cross
Denies neither its substance
Nor the fact
That I have tasted
Of it.


the cross , spirituality