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widow of tekoa
"the widow of Tekoa"
She comes cloaked in widow’s grey,
dust of Tekoa in her hair.
Her story drifts like embered ash
before a king whose heart still trembles.
Joab’s whisper rides the wind—
a strategist’s gift and poison.
He sees the hollow in David’s gaze,
the way a monarch carries grief
like a spear wound under shining robes.
She speaks of two sons—
flesh torn by blood,
the survivor condemned
to barter her last hope
for the clan’s grim verdict.
David rises, king and father,
voice splitting the hush:
“No hair of your son will perish.”
The promise arches
over a chasm of silence.
Joab’s name hushes the chamber,
the parable unmasked.
Absalom may return to Jerusalem,
but the throne’s distance
keeps the father’s embrace at bay.
Mercy and justice circle
like hawks above scorched earth.
A son restored in name—
a bond still courted by shadows,
foreshadowed crack in the realm.
In the cool of an evening court
hope flickers, tentative as candlelight.
Between duty’s crown and a parent’s ache,
the king learns again
how fragile reconciliation can be.
.
