Jesus Washes His Disciples' Feet, Gethsemane
We snuck into Gethsemane
that night to pray like teenage
hoodlums squeezing through
a locked gate, hauling our
firewood in the collapsible
wagon that made so much
noise rolling over the wooden
bridge before we got to the
deep woods where the city’s
lights had vanished and we
could build a fire that no park
ranger would discover
amidst the many layers of
rules we were breaking as
we drank forbidden tea,
asking God to show us
the new world we were
fully expecting to rise
over the horizon at
dawn like Zion being
established as the tallest
of mountains even in
the flattest of swampland
since the map was no longer
three-dimensional and time
was no longer linear; there
was only Jesus trying to
keep us awake with songs
about the wind and stars.
I wasn’t there when the cops
arrived; I said I needed
to go home to my wife.
And I wondered when I
got there how Peter felt
and if I would have followed
at a distance and shivered
from across the courtyard,
waiting to see what God
would do, unwilling to risk
going all in on a new world.
We snuck into Gethsemane
that night to pray like teenage
hoodlums squeezing through
a locked gate, hauling our
firewood in the collapsible
wagon that made so much
noise rolling over the wooden
bridge before we got to the
deep woods where the city’s
lights had vanished and we
could build a fire that no park
ranger would discover
amidst the many layers of
rules we were breaking as
we drank forbidden tea,
asking God to show us
the new world we were
fully expecting to rise
over the horizon at
dawn like Zion being
established as the tallest
of mountains even in
the flattest of swampland
since the map was no longer
three-dimensional and time
was no longer linear; there
was only Jesus trying to
keep us awake with songs
about the wind and stars.
I wasn’t there when the cops
arrived; I said I needed
to go home to my wife.
And I wondered when I
got there how Peter felt
and if I would have followed
at a distance and shivered
from across the courtyard,
waiting to see what God
would do, unwilling to risk
going all in on a new world.