My Arising Poem by Peter Eliastam

My God! You hugged a Jew!
I can’t believe it God! You hugged a Jew!
My God! You hugged a Jew!
A poor pariah, hugely held in loving arms
To our Messiah – man to manhood
On the rock-base of His sacrificial blood.
Yet in the terror of that hug’s release
I fell, a self-appointed candidate of hell
Anointed at the prison wall, to fall and crouch
Among the crevices of stone, and moan and howl,
A running roach, a creature of reproach,
Despised, a fugitive, a son unrealised
Before Your throne, implacably alone,
A winter branch, an arid bone, insensate,
With a heart of stone; disqualified, unwilling,
Begging for a mercy-killing, all my secrecy
Exposed, my folly known, compelled to gasp –

My God! You hugged a Jew!
I can’t believe it God! You hugged a Jew!
My God! You hugged a bloody Jew!
I scurried from the brightness of Your face
To fly from You, a self-abandoned captive
To the power of the primal lie, deceived to die,
And hurried to the place where outcasts cower
In disgrace. There You fed me passionate
Forgiveness in your intimate embrace.
I reeled and tumbled to the ground where once
Your feet had trod, blinking through my tears.
I mumbled at Your bright dismissal of my darkest dread
And terrorising fears – to rise and grasp instead
My banishment’s removal! In that gasp, unthinking,
Prostrate sobbed, “My God! My God!
In Your approval – by Your Holy Spirit hugged,
I rise a Son by resurrection from the dead! ”