(dedicated to the everlasting memory of Harry O'Neill: Au revoir comrade)

 

an old olive oil press rusting

at the bottom of a sandy garden

in this occupied territory;

children lying prostrate,

bleeding into the soil;

a man

murmuring.

about a weight, a burden, something.....

lifted.

We disciples could not hear clearly,

what with all the muffled explosions

and such, all around Gethsemane.

 This man, this man, he screamed out:

‘NOT AS I WILL, BUT AS YOU WILL FATHER!’.

but there was no other man there, no father, nothing.

Was this man drunk?

I do not think so.

But he may have drunk some wine

sometime..

Now there's

a pause in the battle,

I hear the cock crow

three times:

faraway, strange, sunset, not sunrise.

but all the roosters had been eaten, long ago

what with the siege and the starvation and whatnot.

I don't know....