Olive trees.
I had expected drab leaves,
green coated with dust,
but smooth golden wood
and fruit running with rich-pressed oil.
Underneath sand,
dust, scrubby grass.
But not rocks.
Not rocks, sharp edged limestone, some ground to gravel
but more often chunks
the size of a hand, the rubble
that salts the ground
and emerges
in misshapen outcrops.
To plant crops, you not only have to plow; you have to carry away the rocks, most of them,
lest they stifle the tender new growth.
Remember the parable of the seed? Sowed on rocky ground
it wilts
and dies.
Olive trees
don’t need the ground cleared.
Just a small patch dug, space enough for their roots
which will tangle their way
through the rocky soil,
their twisted trunks
echoing
the shape underground.
So when Jesus knelt
at the garden of Gethsemane
it was, as likely as not,
not a smooth carpet of green,
a living kneeler,
but rocks,
the only relief
an overlay of discarded leaves and sticks.
It hurt.
Like the wilderness where he began his ministry.
Though there the rocks
defied scale,
traversing the space
from the depths of the earth
to the sky.
And always the temptation, always
to seek an easier, a more domesticated, more controlled
way.
Turn these stones into bread,
take this cup away.
But it was his body, broken, on stone and wood and iron,
that became the bread
and his lifeblood
the cup.
Given for you.
