Ambient Light

Ambient Light

Drew Jackson

Two New York girls riding down a Georgia highway
for the first time in memory. They know they have roots here
but have they thought of their grandmother, buried
six feet in this red clay? Have they thought of how
she now nourishes these dogwoods and magnolias
the way she nourished me on Grand Magnolia Dr.?
It is nighttime as we drive and they cannot see
how this earth is different from the dark soil of North.
Maybe tomorrow when the morning star rises.
But tonight they do not care about what is beneath
their feet because they have been caught up
into the heavens. Look at the stars one shouts!

We can’t see them like this back home
says the other. Amazed and with a tinge of sadness.
Then they share with us front seaters
that the moon is now in its waxing gibbous phase.
As if we know what that means. As if
we know anything at all. I want to give them
more than ambient city light. For them
to joust with Orion and join their sister shine to Pleiades.
Jump up out the backseat and take a ride
on Ursa Major. My loves, I want to give you the stars.
To give you what you’ll need to live
beneath these falling stars.

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Drew Jackson
Poet & Theologian

Drew Jackson is a poet, speaker, and public theologian. He is author of God Speaks Through Wombs: Poems on God’s Unexpected Coming and  Touch the Earth: Poems on The Way. His work has appeared in Oneing from the Center for Action and Contemplation, The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad, Made for Pax, The Journal from the Centre for Public Christianity, Fathom Magazine, and other publications. 

Photography by Alen Palander