My Lord of the Garden

It is now more monument than gardened hill;
The trunks are there, and boughs and fruit,
The city and the climb—they all stand
Apparent in their similarity to when
The Christ
Loosed, as a dove, Salvation
On the breath of Time.

Caesar’s might stretched wide destruction
Where Jehovah prayed,
And Roman infantry laid waste the hallowed ground
Where once was olive grown, and gathered in,
And pressed to oil.
Jerusalem, as He said, they reduced to common ground;
And Gethsemane? Not one tree remained.

“My Lord,
Peace be to thee
Whom the world’s grief hath gone under.
I breathe thee
Before Pilate, bloody Herod, and the synagogual mob,
And wonder that thy final cup
Should so humiliate my thought.
I would thou wert a bastion
Of flaming sworded cherubim
Against their sin,
But thou, The Son of God,
Hast left, Gethsemanean trial beyond,
My angry Peter’s sword and stain:
‘… forgive them …’ and where was grief
Only wonder remains.”

They did not dig the roots:
Broke off the branches, tore down the trunks,
Devoured the fruit, and with fire
The final stumps dismayed;
But, for haste or want of savagery or use, they
Overlooked the vestigial roots.

The trees survive, and He too
Who, at this place, the error of all man took on;
Who, save for our souls, with neither sin nor death had part;
Who trembled at the paradox but would not stand away
And, for love of us, committed into Calvary
His Savior heart.

“My Lord,
The olive stands, Jerusalem above—
Not the same, but of the same root sprung.”

“My God: bless thee

For thy Son.”