In a hot garden of rosemary Big Jesus swallows the sun.
A shadowed hand, palm up, keeps wolves from the small door,
keeps certainty boxed neatly, clipped like lavender at his bare feet,
well tendered and tender in a green heat haze.
Eight feet of grief, or love, who can say
but the lady in the house who looks on him each day.

His stillness endures cicadas’ song, peeling paint,
hope plastered thick each catholic morning.
He has the quiet of bread and wine laid out
in the shade of a bay tree.
He stands tall in a cobalt sky,
assured, knowing he knows each reason why.

We are told “turn right by the Big Jesus”.

His robed arm casually sweeps the way
which we follow dry as old wood, dust devilled,
thirsty as the sinking sun, for a mile into Tuscan hills.
He points to olive groves, figs, shameless hibiscus,
buxom vines trapped in neat rows,
old paths through fields where heaven grows.

Here morning birds call at an open window.
An apricot sky drips into ripening strawberry
then blasts blue, brazen as an ocean of laughter.
It is the same blue that He is wearing, and in His eyes
that tolerate perpetual content,
to stop us doubting what a lifetime meant.

There is no Big Jesus in this garden.
Faith is broadcast by the Sun God,
by scented plants’ exuberant peace
and chattering children hunting for lizards.
There is conviction in a breeze
that sings caresses through old cypress trees.