Perhaps it was as much a grove
as a garden. Gethsemane;
the word denotes an oil vat.
One imagines the gnarled
and twisted branches
of the ancient olive trees
casting their knotted, moonlight shadows
over the prone man as he wrestles, sweats,
and utters his anguished and lonely prayer.
The springtime equinox had just passed,
and the trees were in flower;
their small, cream-coloured buds
hidden by the darkness.
Perhaps their fragrant smell
spoke to the man’s heart, prompting
a yearning message of impossible hope;
but we have no indication of that.
More likely they told him
of the fruit that would grow ripe
and bitter in the summer’s heat,
to be gathered in the autumn.
The man will reap a winter’s harvest
in the cup that he prayed
would be taken from him.
It was not.
For the sake of tear-drenched love
he tastes the choking draught,
swallows deeply,
and experiences the anointing
of oil pressed determinedly
from the bitter, dark fruit of sad religion;
ripe, and full of fear.
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