I’d hate to think that someday
I could be watching a soap opera
in a beach motel
when,
outside and across the street,
there is a full-bellied moon rising
over the crashing tides
like a great, golden peach
in a storm-tossed orchard.

I’d like to think that someday
I’ll be like the man with the long camera
who’d
searched the Internet and watched
from his car for weeks,
and for the last few hours,
had huddled over his tripod in the dark
to catch all the rising light.

I wouldn’t mind if someday
my children are like the dark-headed three
dancing on the great boulder
when
they first saw it dawning
over the puddles of sea moss they played in
and shouted all the obvious nouns
everyone in the beach motel
missed, like:
Big! and Lighthouse!
and Moon!

Bethany J. Melton

Bethany J. Melton writes true stories from her home on Edgewood Road, where she grew up reading books and climbing the oak trees. She hopes to describe the places and people she’s known in a way that tells the truer story of Jesus’s coming kingdom. You can read more stories on her blog, bethanyjmelton.com.