Alma Bloch, Née Trepka

After Carl Bloch's Christ in Gethsemane II

We don’t need tradition to say
you are the tone and texture,
the whorl and oil in his paintings—

everywhere in the amber rays,
color of the eyes, arm gestures,
even in the shadows straining

toward Messiah. You were ballet
in his brushstrokes, the figure-
angel to pull us into the pain

of how God alone can pray,
how you held Him like a river— 
His sweat purging before hanging

for us all on the longest day.
You steadied more than an hour
every time you posed, waiting
                               
 like the only one knowing the way
to strengthen Him, to comfort
after betrayal, during forsaking.
 
You, the soul of the house, stayed
amid the wounds, bonds, and failure,
even as he knelt there shaking,

painting the coil of blood that could pay.
Such embrace for husband and Savior—
a frame of infinite breaking.

Mark D. Bennion is a poet and English professor. He is the author of Psalm & Selah, Forsythia, and Beneath the Falls. He and his wife, Kristine, are learning how to parent two married children, two teenagers, and one tween. They welcome your advice.