“Christ in Gethsemane”, by Michael D. O’Brien

Gethsemane - DeLa Hayes Coward

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/gethsemane-dela-hayes-coward.html

Gethseamane, the hour is near

A Painting by Anthony Falbo
http://www.falboart.com/Originals/originals3.htm

If it be your will

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.

© Ken Rookes 2011