Doubt Poem by Giles Watson

So Thomas thrust his hand into the side of Christ.

Blue light radiated, struck into the heart of time.
That was when the doubting truly began: that this
was not eternal – the cedars would turn to swirls
of light; the waters would become heavens;
the mountains would be made of creeping things
and things that flew merely to fall down, until only
this man was left standing. So Thomas pulled it
back out of the thick red gunk of life, looked at it,
felt faint. There was an ascension amongst the
tracery; the sky broke into branches, and women
and men became birds. The sun shot through it
as though piercing acres of refracting glass. And
Thomas turned to Magdalene and said, “I still don’t
believe it. You try to make sense of it. You saw it first.”