The Chameleon Christ

When I was born (but long ago, and far

From where you sit – in pews or coloured chairs –

Painting o’er my body with your bizarre

And confident doctrines); my flaxen hairs

Were dark; I had my mother’s eyes. My head

Was purple as the robe they dressed me in

Three decades later, and the wooden bed

Of yellow straw was gold against my skin.

And when, in later years, a crimson crown

Of blood dripped down and mingled with the pearls

Of sweat and tears, and stained the green hill, brown,

The orange sun went black, and all the burls

Of trees and scaffolds hung their leaves with lips –

Stained with my Passion as for the eclipse.

But now those shades (which, most particular

I knew, and named, though you shall never see

Like Joseph’s cloak – once all vermicular

With blues more azure than Lake Galilee)

Have faded. Now the great restorer’s brush

Reverently claims, as for a worn Renoir

Or Michelangelo, a gentle wash

Of colour – to return what time doth mar.

But in his image, only. So, I hang:

As dark as liquorice in Libya,

With lighter, almond eyes in Pyongyang,

And skin like chalk, in Dover. You prefer

To see me as yourselves, and not as I

Am, when stripped of your iconography.

So I am camouflaged, and claimed for all

The old robe now – the khaki uniform

Of soldiers of the politick who call

Across the wastelands of words which deform

The beauty of that rainbow, in whose bow

Is all the promise made after the flood:

Refracted to make visible the vow

That all are washed one colour in my blood.

So I will take on what you wish of me:

Clothe me in colours for your evening prayer;

Dress me local lore or liturgy;

It all comes to the same – for, everywhere,

I am, to everyone, what I must be:

Forever changing yet, forever, Me.