My time machine whirled and stuttered
as I set my course for yesterday
in quest of the ultimate key.

Swooping down to the hour of my birth
I gazed through the glass at Wyandotte General
where mother’s exhausted smile
eased my empathetic dread.

     The long journey had begun.

Steering back in time
I soared across the Atlantic -
high above the tall ships
bearing my ancestors  
to their adopted destinies.

      An immense leap to be sure,
      but the minutest turn of the wheel.

I wondered how my people
had evaded the claws
of Europe’s wretched plagues
and homicidal pretenders
brandishing swords and chalices.

I watched with sorrow as
empires flourished and collapsed.
The hypnotic rhythm
of first and final breaths
wearied my soul.

The breath of prophets
drifted over hills and rivers,
past fields, flocks and shepherds.

      But there was still
      no glimpse of a beginning.

My forebears' footfalls led me back
to the tangles of tropical Africa
to hear our initial words
spoken in a course and faltering tongue.

In wonder, I witnessed
our first cautious bipedal steps
10,000 generations ago
by the light of new found fires
dotting the evening campgrounds.

      I slipped my vessel back in gear
      and fed it some fuel;
      for I still had eons to go.

I circled over bands of ancient cousins
foraging woods and glades -
fur - covered on all fours:
eyes scouring the earthscape
in search of higher paths.

I waited patiently on the beach
as waves lapped the shore.
for mega-great grandmother
to crawl from the sea
and drink oxygen fresh from the sky.

      Though she was first on land
      my destination was not yet in sight.

My craft passed beneath clouds
over vast and restless waters
where countless ocean denizens
fed and multiplied.

The numbers of species diminished
with each millennium traveled -
bringing me closer to the source.
and the sea became a lonelier
and more desolate expanse.

DNA strands shortened.
our precursors losing
organs and motility.
Minute sea creatures,
buffeted by the shifting currents,
had but a few cells

and then -

one.

      Three and a half billion years from home,
      I waited silently at the threshold.

Hovering over the turbulence
of an oceanic storm
buffeted by cyclonic gusts,
I peered into the darkness.
a sudden flash broke the surface
and a cluster of amino acids
began to assemble, shook and divided.

The tingling beneath my skin
told me I had come home
to my primordial self,
rocking gently
in the dark fertile folds
of the vast and inscrutable sea.

*August, 2007