Velma Jean Reeb: Star Dust
THE GIFT
My Lord, what a morning,
My Lord, what a morning,
O my Lord, what a morning
When the stars begin to fall.
–Entrance hymn,
(Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine,
Second Sunday after Epiphany,
January 15, 2006)
After seven years of inter-
stellar wanderings, the spacecraft
that journeyed halfway to Jupiter,
beyond the Earth-Moon Orbit,
came back today.
It bears precious freight—
ageless dust motes, the most
primitive particles in the universe,
gathered from the outer limits—
from the time when there was no time,
when there was universe inchoate—
undifferentiated matter—the becoming thing
that was always there.
It brings nameless particles that existed
eons before our solar system was formed,
before there was water,
before there was earth. Timeless,
they were there when life was
but a thought in the mind of God.
As the craft approaches atmosphere
crowds gather at the Dougway Proving
Ground in the Utah desert,
their pupils reflecting its … Click to continue . . .