“…the location where Hubble has repeatedly stared since 2003, trying to build up a picture of objects whose separation from us is so great that their light arrives in dribs and drabs.” – BBC News, “Hubble Space Telescope achieves deepest cosmic view yet”, December 12, 2012

observe deeper and you will see
the earliest years of cosmic expansion
when its light arrives in dribs and drabs
from the Furnace stretched by time–
blue to red– looking backwards toward
the beginning of cold neutral gas
the dark age before stars switched on
making the first heavy elements
then intergalactic plasma, not iron
or calcium, not blood, that came far,
far later with a kindly hand
in our own shape, a mirror of ourselves
reflected in the dark firmament
when the stars came to rest
above a wide slow river
and we walked cautiously at noon
fearful of the loss of sun at dusk,
of every bright sky streak, tides, wind,
as we explored the stones and saw
our own features in every leaf, became
masters of the seen and by extension
the imagined, this red light arriving
finally after billions of years,
before this galaxy coalesced.

Emily Strauss has an M.A. in English, but is self-taught in poetry. Over 130 of her poems appear in dozens of online venues and in anthologies. The natural world is generally her framework; she often focuses on the tension between nature and humanity, using concrete images to illuminate the loss of meaning between them. She is a semi-retired teacher living in California.