From there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. 

(Hosea 2:15a^[1])

Incapable of inauthenticity,

Sunkissed leaves sway in a

Summer breeze as a chorus of

Cardinals trill above the spotted

Fawn nibbling on a rose bush;

While the boy, not more than a

Decade old, lies locked within his

Brain, oblivious to mercy.

Wandering, lost, alone, scared

Damp swamp threatening each

Step shrouded in thick darkness

Surrounded by strange and

Terrible sounds of belching

Doom. Fear-frozen arms locked 

Around a cedar trunk, an island in a 

Thick stew of hopelessness.

How did one so young come to

This swamp of Achor where the

Innocent bones of Achan’s 

Children are bleached, where

Devils lurk and shadows run for fear?

What ancestral sin is visited upon him?

Or, what adult transgression has

Teleported him back into childhood?

Elder with a wounded child within

Cries in the night, still clinging with a

Tiny shred of fading confidence to the

Cedar trunk, its fragrance somehow

Soothes and calls his attention to a

Minute green fly looking at him with

Large yellow eyes filled with a

Kindness not seen in his own species

Tiny flies with transparent wings and

Multicolored thoraxes swirl a vortex

Around him, their collective song

Melting fears into wonder; now

Lifting him softly upwards, floating,

Floating toward, now through, a

Portal of blue-green light into ineffable

Wholeness and shalom

Here, dolphins dance and massive

Cetacea spin near kindhearted mermaids

Who never intended their siren songs to 

Lead to anything but genuine awareness of

Those hard truths we distain to face

Because we have not yet learned of our

Belovedness, nor of graces that are 

Woven through the cosmic fiber 

---

^[1] New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.