My time machine whirled and stuttered
as I left today behind -
setting my course for yesterday
questing clues to the ultimate mystery.

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

      The long journey was underway.

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

      A giant 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 wondered and watched with sorrow as
empires flourished and vanished.

The hypnotic rhythm
of first and final breaths
wearied my soul
as life's relentless cycle
spiraled back to antiquity.

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 from Europe
to the tangles of tropical Africa
to record our first words
in a course and extinct 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.

And I saw 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 was 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, vibrate and divide.

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

*August,  2007