Beginning

Some spittle; starting mud. Even the thus worked
wonder of restored eyes, done by the by;
sends out the man with a mustard seed of song
to the flint sects; for himself, no stone for headrest:
each rung he scales is less scaleable than the last,
throughout this hotter-growing kiln called his
ministry; three years’ terminus, the start:

cruellest crucifixion, exposed nerve-endings
set to fire with what would blackout any
other mere mortal. What mere mortal can birth
eyes in a man who never had them from birth?
Brings us his fire and strength by his baptism:

asphyxiation, haemorrhage, dehydration,
enmeshed in a slashed body that ceases never
through every nerve to be on fire.
But greater than these, still, still, in this terminus:
the mildest unrebelling heart whose fire
grows stronger by its very gashes.