Step down into this water and be healed

a voice said, coming from infinity

Then I remembered I had seen the cast

yesterday in the St. Louis Museum.

Now in my mind’s eye that still frozen stance,

a statue on the edge of striding out,

one leg extended-- why, it just stepped off

or is about to enter, sight unseen

eternity and possibility—

I am writing this poem about the sky

I tell myself. Now the River Jordan.

I see the water poured on someone’s head.

Here the vision stops. it won’t go on—

Who is it in the water, you? Me? Christ?

Or someone only this poem can name,

a new word made out of the Christian myth,

the clear color redemption takes when poured—