Barefoot on Broken Glass

(written at Dorchester Abbey, beneath a stained glass window depicting a shoeless Christ)

Why do you walk
unshod, on the broken glass
of our lives?
What do you need to feel
so sharply, so keenly
on the rough hewn road,
that you risk a thousand
sweet injuries underfoot?
Must you know the depth
of being cut to the quick?
Would you only feel,
as humans daily do,
when your blood flows like
ruby rivers upon jade green turf
or chalk grey granite,
till you've marked every inch
of exposed rock and crag
with your disillusioned grief,
in disbelief left a trail
from your scored flesh,
so we know you'v e been there,
and are surely in our midst?

And do you bid me tread also
the same path of shattered dreams,
with eyes downcast
and soul low bent,
with each gingered step
to grind hard my heel against
the detritus of hopes dashed;
so I'm bruised, snubbed,
repeatedly stubbed my toe upon
endless juts of iron hard soil;
till skin breaks
as heart breaks,
along a path of crippliing
brittle grit;
till poured and drained from me
all signs of life and love.
How long would you have me
limp, bleeding and barefoot
on a trail in search
of everything that I've lost?