is at Kelvingrove Art Gallery

and Museum at the end

of a colonnaded gallery,

and lit by two halogen lights.

I had to kneel to see properly

those clean lines

and unresolved perspective

of Scotland's favourite painting.

Looking up I could see Christ

stripped of blood,

minus the Crown of Thorns,

pus and those eternal cries.

But I couldn't decide how

that hanging cross signals our destiny?

Will our lives forever be suspended

in the silence between two worlds?

Will they splash into the heart

of a lake where two fisherman

have pulled their boat

to the shore in the calm dawn?

Or else will they rise beyond

darkness and death

to that thing I can't believe in

light and eternal life?