Stones

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.