As words flew over the land

They carried the news of John, who preached in the river Jordan,

And baptized in its clear water,

And made men born again.

Jesus and Judas travelled to this strange man in rags,

But they saw there that John’s light was mixed with shadow.

His baptized were weak and despaired, poor and easily lead.

They stood in a long line near the river,

And rushed in the arms of their master,

And wept and cried out until he plunged them in the fresh water,

And he took them against him,

And they were fragile as children can be,

And they held on to him.

Jesus saw all this, and Judas was angry, saying,

Let us go away or go home now.

You see what is John’s baptism, a trick to trick the lost children

A good trick, but insincere

This is not what we are seeking

Let us go away.

But Jesus saw a mean where Judas’s vision faltered,

And walked to John, to trick even the trickster

As their eyes met Jesus and John felt each other’s sameness

And each knew that the other had a soul and a tongue,

And they smiled, and talked of what they knew.

On that night,

John introduced Jesus to his disciples, saying

Here is a master from afar

Who knows of the sages in white,

And of the sages in the orient,

And even of the mysteries wherein the pagans reached our God.

Jesus was cheered, and lived with them like a prince in travel.

When the crowd gave him food and drink,

When their words arose in celebration,

Jesus thought of Joseph his father,

And imagined him near the house on the hill

Looking at the horizon, and wondering

Where his son had gone, and if he was safe there.

At this thought Jesus quelled the fire of his heart,

And retreated under his tent to sleep with God.

Once, in one of those nights when men and women gathered under the tents,

Revelling in silence and mystery, Jesus arose, shed a look to Judas, and said

What you have heard, about the man in Nazareth, born not of his father but of our God,

These words spoke of me, Jesus the Nazarene.

Then he sat, and said no more, watching as the words took life in their hearts,

And Judas wiped a tear in secret, as he did not know that Jesus acted according to his Father's secret wish.

Days of pleasure passed, but the son of Joseph longed for more.

John wanted nothing but to eat and be free,

He ate and was freed by his baptised’s devotion

And this twig of a fire shone dim, next to the great sun above

That shed its shadows in the river Jordan, before the stars came through.

At night, Jesus left Judas to walk alone in the far off distance, thinking

There, I need a sign, I know who I am and what power is mine,

Yet I do not know the way, and cannot divine the future.

And he walked to the desert, with doubt in his heart, looking for a sign.

In the desert, Jesus thought of his mother

Standing in the morning next the the house on the hill, thinking

Is my child lost in the wilderness ?

I want to hold, caress and love,

I am as a garden without water now,

And I wither without fruit.

Jesus shed these thoughts and walked in the wilderness for a long time

The sky grew deeper and darker, until the hour turned to dawn

And hours passed, and days maybe, and he did not eat

But let the sun work on the anvil of his head

And his thoughts sink where the hunger lies

And manifest in vision

And there above the sand and the stone he saw, manifest, a long shadow of his form over the world

Grow larger, and rise and this giant detached itself from his feet, to walk on its own, and spoke

Saying

Even now, son of Joseph, the rumour flies around the country

And those words you let hanging under the tent got out

To tip the world over.

In its deformed hand the shadow had two jewels

Red of colour, that seemed to burn

Two rubis almost the same

And Jesus felt his heart falter

And Jesus feared, and desired,

As he did not know by their colour

How to tell one from the other.

Day fell into night, and the stars seemed to fall down into the ground

And the two stones grew and grew and burned in his mind

As around him the shadow danced and sang

And spoke of the man who rise, of the man who falls,

Of the one who crawls under the sun

To find nothing and die

And the shadow spoke, saying

Your path was known before the world came

It was set in the stars

And as all things fall, separate and die,

So too you will be consumed,

And disappear before dawn

And your name is a mockery

And you are as a grain of sand or stone

In the eye of God.

When the shadow fell under the new sun, Jesus walked walked through the desert,

And thought of many things,

And so full of sorrow was his heart,

That more than once he thought of lying down under the sun, and let go of life,

And let go of the madness that had seized his heart,

And promised so much more sorrow.

In those times, the shadow was felt

Under the sunlit dunes

Entering the mind, with questions and doubts,

Enveloping him, leading him astray.

And Jesus struggled with the shadow for three days and three nights more, eating nothing

And drinking but dew.

There in the midst of pain,

When his mouth was dry,

When his eyes were dim,

And he laid on his side waiting for the end of the world,

Jesus though of Judas, and cried.

And Jesus thought of Mary and Joseph, and it was as if he had eaten and drunk,

And his eyes opened with new resolve

And he did not think of Rome,

And he did not think of the Temple,

But focused his mind on a clear intent

That seemed to rise as the sun.

The world would be plunged into new waters,

So that those who love, find each other,

In faith, and in spite of the world,

And the shadow became quiet, and looked in anger,

For it feared sacrifice over all things.

Having made his resolve clear, Jesus came back to John’s camp.

But there he saw nothing but dust, scrapes of wood and cloth, and Judas wandering in despair.

And Judas told him of the riders at night, of the torches and the screams,

And how he had to hide as John was taken far out of their reach.

To a prison that did not see the light.

While they sat in the sand in sorrow,

Jesus felt again a great resolve

But kept that secret to himself,

So that it could come to pass.

He decided that they would go to Galilee,

And they departed without looking back,

To the land of Galilee,

by the Way of the Sea.