POINTS OF VIEW

Let’s put things down. There’s the man,
“Ecce Homo”- forget the irony for a minute
and be literal if we can.
Baptised, Jew, 33 as far as you can pin it,

give or take a year. Good looking too,
though the portraits are copies – unreliable
at best, and descriptions are few.
Only the charisma’s undeniable.

Attractive to women no doubt. The Son
of God could hardly be otherwise
than the nonpareil Perfect One.
Certainly the most arresting eyes!

And then there’s the Magdalene,
the most famous – no, forget the name
by which she’s so unfairly been
reviled, the object she became:

the man himself preached compassion,
remember? We shall do no more
than follow, and in our own fashion,
dispel the myth of the whore;

although, admittedly, the slander of ages
must take a while to die. Spare her
then the pious pulpit outrages,
the common urge to tear her.

Consider her instead as wronged –
there’s nothing empirical in scripture
to deny her what belonged
to her: she suffered by depicture.

Thus, no longer base, she could
be lover, wife, mother, all
in the fold of Christian good.
A worthy married woman withal.

***