Both Lights

First Came the Telescope

There comes an hour when the road stops pretending it goes on forever…..

Granny Sue lived in a cinder block home with two and half porches and she would strategically turn on the lights…

…whether any one was coming home or not.

You just never knew.

One light is practical, but multiple lights is a pattern.

I never asked her about it.

You do not ask a woman why she does the things she does. I have found the result of the question may cause you much pondering and processing that is needless.

You just notice the yard is never completely dark and that you can find the steps without feeling for them.

Some call that hour darkness.

I am unsure.

Night makes some lights easier to see.

Maybe the promise was never that darkness would remain absent or forget to arrive at the station.

Maybe it was only that somebody is still turning them on for you to see.

Boutwell Jones

First Came the telescope…

Then a star chart.

Then a red flashlight so the chart would not ruin my eyes.

Granny Sue did not know the physics. She knew the names.

Out there the sky started at the fence lines and seemed to roll on forever…

She pointed with her whole arm, the way you point at something you expect a child to find.

The cigarette, meanwhile, remained in the other hand.

Orion in the winter. The dippers turning through the year (little and big). The seven stars in the cold.

She never explained what any of it meant.

She bought tools for a boy to see things she could not reach and would not live to see him reach either.

I still call them the Seven Sisters.

Boutwell Jones

redclaygospel.com