it begins, some say
long before the first breath
maybe even before the swimmer
finds his way to the egg  
perhaps from seeds
planted in smaller numbered years
or before years, before numbers  
in the cosmos’ first
coded coughing of carbon  
that timeless riddle of time
is in us, written in a script
we cannot read
in a tongue
we cannot hear, but sense
senselessly, eternally, we know
from it, only one
sacred, terrifying, holy, sustaining
truth:
that we return
to days of future past
where there IS no swimmer,
no egg, no crumbling bones
to commune with
blessed stones
only the slow dance
of stardust and
the memory of divine fire