December 23, 2023
First, you will need to cross some dark threshold.
I suggest lying on your back
in a pasture of cut ryegrass or in a city park.
I suggest planting an arm behind your head.
You have inherited acres of a night sky
and she is your aurora borealis
and though you cannot see the world’s
wild shadows, here she will be, nacreous,
grace wavering in bands of blue—green light,
ribbons of gold neon swimming beneath skin.
You will want to write a long letter to your dead.
You will encounter her mind as a kind of iridescent song,
heroic and dense. You will feel fetched as though
from some polluted river. Her glances will pass over you
like folklore. Do not be afraid. This is wonder
mirroring itself and breaking across your face, endless
treetops in silhouette, knowing looks of your elders.
I suggest lying on your back
in a pasture of cut ryegrass or in a city park.
I suggest planting an arm behind your head.
You have inherited acres of a night sky
and she is your aurora borealis
and though you cannot see the world’s
wild shadows, here she will be, nacreous,
grace wavering in bands of blue—green light,
ribbons of gold neon swimming beneath skin.
You will want to write a long letter to your dead.
You will encounter her mind as a kind of iridescent song,
heroic and dense. You will feel fetched as though
from some polluted river. Her glances will pass over you
like folklore. Do not be afraid. This is wonder
mirroring itself and breaking across your face, endless
treetops in silhouette, knowing looks of your elders.
—by Major Jackson
(Ed note: This poem first appeared in Sierra,the magazine of the Sierra Club.)
Photographer Kyle Seymour captures Northern Lights glowing over South Hero, Vermont
Go to Source
Author: The Best American Poetry
