Even if Yeshu did rise from the dead
And, quark-like, flash from spirit back to flesh,
We should regard him not as God the Son
But as a man, who – through his love for God
And the oppressed – became perhaps an angel,
And, like a butterfly from its cocoon,
With "spiritual body" (to quote Paul)
Ascended splendidly from his soiled shroud.
Jerusalem
21 March 1999