First Light

Before brightness found me in the folds of space
I was a cold grey drifting cloud
like dust that might become a star.

Then spirit gathered — focused by the void —
the light of ancient suns
brooding over my scattered sin.

His radiance drew the darkness in
heavy atoms fusing at my core
as I warmed under the weight of love.

When was that day of first light
the genesis gravity could not contain
when—too dense with grace—the night began to burn?


—Eric Nelson