Matthew 26:38

by Lynn Michael Martin

“Tarry here,” he said, “and watch with me.”
I peered through darkness, past the olive trees
but saw no shadows on Gethsemane.

“Teacher, what is this thing that I might see?”
I asked him, and his voice came, by degrees,
through darkness— “Tarry here and watch with me.”

He went a little farther off from me;
I knelt alone, but still I heard his pleas—
I watched for shadows on Gethsemane.

For hours I watched, till tree had merged with tree;
I sank to sleep, and so heard not the breeze
or Jesus calling— “Tarry here with me.”

I woke and saw him, and he pled with me—
the tortured brow, his face and muscles seized—
I saw the shadows on Gethsemane.

While horrors fell upon him silently,
white wings descended through that bitter siege;
for angels heard his outcry— “Stay with me”—
and filled the shadows on Gethsemane.

---

Lynn Michael Martin is slowly learning that he is not the center of the world.

---

Photography by Kenneth Godoy