The Olive Pression

Aren't gardens supposed to be colorful and beautiful and glowing and delightful
Aren't birds usually singing their solos and songs
Isn't the ground supposed to be warm and soft
and the bushes and trees illuminated with green
And all smiling at adorers like me

Then this is no typical garden
with an eclipsical warden
The darkest place, this side of the Jordan

The shadows are laughing and staring
and the flowers are withered and dying
The trees are howling and glaring
And everyone I know is deep asleep and lying and dreaming
and not seeming to understand the tension in my soul
and the dimension of my role in this garden of stone light

I'm alone tonight

Except for one wing of light to help me stand upright
Still - my strain is growing and waning
Emotional pain is landing and showing
I'm sweating blood.
It's dripping off my clasped hands into the mud and sand

Abba!
I know you hear my voice - hear my plea:
Please take this cup away from me

Father!
You hear me clearly - hear my plea:
remove this cup far away from me

Daddy!
Hear my plea! See
if there is another way for it to be
and let it fall down upon me

This cup is filled with no pleasant drink
No water - no wine - nothing
but pain and sin and responsibility
and a role so deep
That if it be your will - your will I will keep
And as I am your son - your will be done

Now even the dead leaves on the ground and the pale grass has surrounded me
closing in around my sore knees - taunting me
This place I've been before - a home I thought I knew - now is haunting me
Curse you Gethsemane - you garden of agony

It's Spring - but the wind is cold and my lips are blue
It's Spring - but the blossom's bloom is long overdue
I think Spring missed its cue because this is no Spring that I'm going through

I can feel creepers crawling up behind me
Shadow and Darkness purring beside me
circling and chanting a song of Sheol
grinding the thoughts in my mind like coal
burning and blazing a tune of a hell-raising
on my soul crushed with grief to the point of death
Relief has blown away with my feeble breath

And in that - Darkness approaches...

Isss sssomething the matter?
Have all of your friendsss ssscattered?
Why do your teeth chatter?

Oh, but I know why you're here
You want the be the pioneer
Thisss isss your big premier!

Ssso far it ssseemsss to be going ssso well
But you ssseem a little tenssse to tell
Chill out - relaxsss - go catch a hotel

J.C. baby - you need to let it be
Be free from thisss burdening
You'll feel better - my guarentee!

You need to go walk around - take a break
What you're planning on doing isss imposssible anyway
Having mankind ressst on your ssshouldersss isss to much for any one man to take

Leave me be snake - or I will crush your head

I will walk through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil
and be released from this tread of the dead
for He and His breath, thread me through the shadows ahead

And in that - I silenced Darkness' foul counsel

But the darkness has only began to form its storm
heading this way to flood this garden - my home - my pardon

Now the hour has come
to be betrayed at the hands of brothers and sinners of the slum
Once my brother but now someone other
I wish him to kiss another, with lips so bleak
But he kissed me - he laid his kiss upon my cheek

Now is the beginning of the end
that is only to begin

But in the midst of this true anguish - I can't help but grin
That through the blood and sweat and cold dark in the garden
Through my last breath and coming death
Through the wood and iron and pain and strife
soon everyone will have a chance at a new, true
eternal life.