light was the initial condition
abundant light

cells evolving in the sun's
sight learned how to feed:
trap the light
             (in eight minutes, light moves
             from sun to earth,
             cells took a billion years
             to learn to
             use it)

light was the initial condition
the world awash in it

all that's left, finally,
is oxygen, like all 
waste, gathering 
in sea and air
             (a gift for us)

             *

cells side by side
in open ocean
a billion years,
in tidal flats, at peace,
in lake beds, indifferent,
nothing going on
between them until
some primitive cell
tried a new food:
its neighbor

undigested, the prisoner cell,
or perhaps it was a guest,
performed for its host,
or perhaps its captor,
they learned to live together,
attuned, each 
with its own reasons

now the swallowed cell 
has a new home,
nourished, protected,
no exit
             (ancestor to us all)

             *

another billion years,
amid algal blooms,
plant cells sucked in
the blue-green bacteria
long adept at eating light,
now enslaved to feed
the plant, or perhaps
embraced
             (we all adapt)

light was the initial condition
the air awash with it

what we breathe today,
the waste that remains
from blue-green algae
billions of years ago:
air as old as the light of stars