It began with a tree and a garden

in the palm of an ardent Creator,

who gifted the world salvation,

before man had recognized his fall.

Beauty among us.

Truth before us.

And in a moment,

paradise lost.

Until the hour,

when upon a cross made of uprooted garden,

He became the atonement for our sins.

The Carpenter nailed to the form he created.

The veil torn

and the world in darkness.

So stares Saint Thomas

in a window of suspended breath,

speechless at the side of the one who defeated death.

In a pulse,

he hears the serpent shriek in Eden

and comes to understand what love has led to this.

By: Amy Struthers

(Titled after Caravaggio’s painting of the same name)

Image credit: Caravaggio