“If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.”
― Stephen Colbert

Georgia Highway 80 (draft)

10. I sat, quiet
nervous in the artificial night
holding rough boy-hands
with my cousin and brother
all wondering why it was
we could not see the skies
as my father did

I crawled dutifully through years
of inflatable universes
galaxies trapped
condensed into globes of floating nylon
carefully erected in dark rooms

I coveted cold weekend nights spent on pasture hills
eating freeze-dried ice cream and looking up
through his fascination

and telescopes

I plead with God to
let me learn
Taurus, Scorpio and Pisces...
only ever seeing
Orion's bittersweet
three-starred belt
and the occasional dipper

twenty years later they suddenly snatched at me
driving deep among Georgia rollers
streaming through dark space and pine shadows
even steel and tempered glass were no match
my car rested patiently in the shoulder grass

there, Pegasus
reared into the heavens
the curtain of my earthly eyes drew
oh, my family of light

'I used to be a star,' you see
I thought perhaps I'd lost their gaze
but there was no mistaking
these constellations I have missed
all the years and names I have forgotten
they are there
twinkling, infinite
celestial reunion

...

as I pull into our driveway
Betelguese glows low above the yard palms
Orion rests along our roof
and Aquarius swims aside his Fish