Gethsemane
Rowan Williams (b. 1950)
Who said that trees grow easily
compared with us? What if the bright
bare load that pushes down on them
insisted that they spread and bowed
and pleated back on themselves and cracked
and hunched? Light dropping like a palm
levelling the ground, backwards and forwards?
Across the valley are the other witnesses
of two millennia, the broad stones
packed by the hand of God, bristling
with little messages to fill the cracks.
As the light falls and flattens what grows
on these hills, the fault lines dart and spread,
there is room to say something, quick and tight.
Into the trees’ clefts, then, do we push
our folded words, thick as thumbs?
somewhere inside the ancient bark, a voice
has been before us, pushed the densest word
of all, abba, and left it to be collected by
whoever happens to be passing, bent down
the same way by the hot unreadable palms.
(2002)
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Matthew 26:36-46 (NIV)
Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”
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From 2002 to 2012, Rowan Williams served at the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, the symbolic head of the global Anglican Communion. A Welsh Anglican bishop, theologian, and academic, Williams demonstrated a wide range of interests in social and political matters such as denuclearisation, the climate crisis, terrorism, and homosexuality. At the time of his appointment as Archbishop, he was regarded as a figure who could make Christianity credible to the intelligent unbeliever. Less known, perhaps, is his career as a literary writer, having composed both plays and poetry. His poem ‘Gethsemane’ takes reference from the garden where Jesus made agonising prayers to the Father prior to His crucifixion.
‘Gethsemane’ begins with a line of rhetorical, ecological questioning, a growing procession of uncertainties: ‘Who said that trees grow easily /compared with us? What if the bright bare load that pushes down on them / insisted that they spread and bowed / and pleated back on themselves and cracked / and hunched?’ Invariably, these questions anthropomorphise trees as faithful believers, forced into a place of prostration and supplication. The ‘Light’ drops ‘like a palm, / levelling the ground’, perhaps an allusion to Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.
This sense of certain symbolic meanings being impressed upon the garden continues, with the ‘other witnesses / of two millennia’, the ‘broad stones […] bristling with little messages to fill the cracks’. There is an anxiety to saturate every bit of minutiae with metaphorical weight as the ‘fault lines dart and spread’, with ‘room to say something, quick and tight’. The density of meaning feels forced, imprinted by the speaker upon the valley he is placed in.
These meanings, however, bare no futility, as Williams draws us back to the recognition that at a moment in history, ‘inside the ancient bark, a voice has been before us’. Our ‘folded words’, perhaps prayers or explanatory phrases, are pushed into ‘the trees’ clefts’, just as the ‘densest word of all, abba’ was placed in the bark when Jesus prayed. Williams alludes to the posterity of this scene – how the word is ‘left’ to be ‘collected’ by whoever is passing, ‘bent down / the same way by the hot unreadable palms.’ Williams’ poem is at once a meditation on the historic significance of the garden against the seeming insignificance of its environs, but in his witness the garden is burdened by the density of the prayers it has burdened, where Jesus prayed and beads of blood formed on his temple. We remember his words:
‘My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me;
nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.’
What is it that we see each day that reminds us of the sacrifice that Jesus made?
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© 2002 Rowan Williams