The mist rose off the lake as one great cloud, a single body drifting toward the dawn. It did not scatter or hesitate. It moved as though it had been called.

Through the trees ran a river of fog, slipping between the trunks and leaning toward the light, as if the light were the sea it had always been heading for.

The air was crisp and cool. Frost silvered the grass, and my breath hung in front of me, a small mist of my own.

Then the sun’s first rays arrived. They stayed invisible until they met the droplets hanging in the mist. Each droplet caught the light and held it, and the air filled with scattered beams. The light had been there all along, and the mist showed where it fell.

Everything was still, and everything was moving. The lake lay quiet while the fog flowed over it. The trees stood unmoving while the morning passed through them. The whole world seemed alive, awakening, and waiting.

There was a hush, the kind that settles over a congregation just before the first note.

The sun rose, and the world glowed. Warmth and light touched the water, the branches, and my face, a kiss given freely to everything it reached. Another night had safely passed.

At the corner of the dock, a heron stood wrapped in the gold of the mist, gray against the glowing air, still as the posts beside him. He had no hurry in him. He waited, as the whole morning had waited, and the light settled on his shoulders too.

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© 2026 Gilda Wray. All rights reserved.

Wray of Light

The Heron Waits for the Light