Searchlights  
in progress, not final


When a dealership opened or a carnival came
to the unfarmed fields outside our science town,
the night was full of searchlights — columnar beams
crossing like slow, shining scissor blades in the sky.   
With a light that could pierce the evening river fog,
brightening the canopies of trees, transformers,
and clouds, then tapering softly into space.

I was told the beams were measured in candlepower.
Some people in town followed the beams, for fun.
We begged our father to drive us, which he did
one night, and my reference, staring at the lights
from a backseat window, was the three kings
following the star of wonder in the stately, solemn
minor key and the pentameter of camels’ hooves.

As our car pulled into the grassy parking field
we saw the source: a set of carbon arc lamps
the size of kettle drums, on movable gimbals
bolted to a flatbed truck. A customized rig
with operators, two men in caps standing watch.
I wonder now why a klieg light rig like that
wasn’t wonder enough for me at the time.

But the ethereal beams that called us into the night
had confirmed in my first philosophy that somewhere
there was a mother ship, alien and angelic, a radiance
fused from science, heaven, knowledge, and joy.  
This would be the indivisible light from the core —
and could hardly be transported on a flatbed truck
along back roads to towns on blue highways.

It would be years before I understood
that’s exactly how the radiance is transported.
Also by boys in caps bagging carrots and cereal,
by a neighbor letting his hedgerow go wild,
by a cousin’s late night advice for nursing aides,
by one woman defining my sorrow as grace,
another managing a joke at a memorial,

then recounting her husband’s last kiss:
“he kissed me like a bride,” she said.

Searchlights in Atom City    
Oak Ridge, Tennessee,1955


When a dealership opened or a carnival came
to the unfarmed fields outside our science town,
the night was full of searchlights — columnar beams
crossing like slow, shining scissor blades in the sky.   
With a light that could pierce the evening river fog,
brightening the canopies of trees, transformers,
and clouds, then tapering softly into space.

I was told the beams were measured in candlepower.
Some people in town followed the beams, for fun.
We begged our father to drive us, which he did
one night, and my reference, staring at the lights
from a backseat window, was the three kings
following the star of wonder in the stately, solemn
minor key and the pentameter of camels hooves
on desert sand.

As our car pulled into the grassy parking field
we saw the source: a set of carbon arc lamps
the size of kettle drums, on movable gimbals
bolted to a flatbed truck. A customized rig
with operators, two men in caps, standing watch.
I wonder now why a klieg light rig like that
wasn’t wonder enough for me at the time.

But the ethereal beams that called us into the night
had confirmed in my first philosophy that somewhere
there was a Mother Ship — alien and angelic,
an irreducible radiance, one that contained
science and heaven, knowledge, love, and joy.  
This would be the indivisible light from the core —
and could hardly be transported on a flatbed truck
along back roads to towns on blue highways.

It would be years before I understood
that’s exactly how the radiance is transported.
Also by boys bagging lettuce and groceries,
by a neighbor clipping his xxxxxx hedge,
by a woman telling a funny story at a funeral,
then recounting her husband’s last kiss
“he kissed me like a bride,” she said.

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