[Don Jones]

I’ll start with positives. I really like these lines from the last stanza.

One day placed on your head a thorn-wreathed crown.
What was your crime? To spread God’s love around!
O Christ! By love a peasant, from a mass
Of stone, chiseled and carved you out, his rude
And clumsy child-like hands at work, yet now
You’re lost inside a cleft.

For By love a peasant how about with love, a peasant. The comma will help.

If you keep that up retroactively through the rest of the poem the next time around, you will have a winner!

Now for things I don't like.

The macaronic rhyme between Pontcroix and awe. I suppose those who know how to pronounce the French will get the rhyme. But what about those who don’t read French? The rhyme is a bit clever but that is damning with faint praise. Of course, finding a rhyme for “Pauntcroiks” is not an option either. I suggest you rewrite these lines to avoid ending either one of them with a French word pronounced a la French.

I’m not sure why you overlook “On voit” ("we see" as you have in your crib, or "they see" or "one sees"), which opens the poem. After all, the narrator is bearing witness for the collective.

In the second line the meter made me lose my breath only to smash into two stresses!: A brand new cross looms large against a full sky. At that point I knew it would take more effort to read when otherwise, as is the French, this should be a journey with its own ease of velocity and tempo. That is what meter brings to words, after all. L2 really turned me off, especially in light of how well you can use meter in so many places.

How about (despite the inversion in the 4th foot) “An older Christ who lacks color and form.” Again, your employment of French in “sans” (twice!) is annoying. It will really make people who hate the French hate them more! Keeping to the Queen’s English should be the norm here.

I may revisit with more comments on the French as I am in a hurry to leave.

In all, though, I think this is quite good.