Jesus of the Trees


He is the Christ who touches
wood as soon as he arrives.
He comes naked to a bare wood
manger; his shelter is
a rough-hewn timber stable.


His family tree
sees its help in the treed hills
and dates to pastoral-poet David,
branched out to an earthly father;
a carpenter at creation now in wood,
in staffs, hafts, and chips off the block.


Palm fronds salute, a royal tree carpet
for his passion under olive trees;
sent down a human crack of seed
under the barren fig of Gethsemane.


His martyrdom
upon intersecting timber beams;
sanctifies all wood and branches.
His blood shed in defeat of death
upon a tree makes all trees sacred.


All avenues are in his honour now;
His timbre in them since his nailing.
The straight, the twisted reach of sorrow
is driven into the lignum of all living,
grown with and not against the grain.


He is the tree of life
bursting seed to be re-scarified
as we, grafted in, will be suffering
life driven to glorious integrity
in the rejoined branches.


31 Aug 1999 © Wayne David Knoll
Corpus Christi Community, Greenvale, Victoria