As I rotate without and within
When I’ve died I’ll be born yet again
I’ve come and I’ve gone
Like the dusk and the dawn
Can a cycle be said to begin?

Ten minutes to the end—
What do you do? What would
You do if in ten minutes you
Would churn away, to dust,
With Death's hand on the crank?

She awaits your ashes to sprinkle
In her garden but you may
Not be ready. There's plenty to do
In ten minutes I suppose—though
I think most of us would

Hold our breaths until the churning
Started—hoping that Death would
Be merciful and give us something
For the pain.

From stellar cores where chaos writ,
I formed in fusion’s blinding pyre,
A relic of the infinite,
Forged deep within a cosmic fire,

Ejected forth by death’s collapse,
A supernova’s final breath,
Through voids I danced in endless lapse,
A mote of life within its death,

The cradle of a newborn world
Ensnares me in its molten womb,
Where under continents, I’m hurled,
Entombed within the planet’s gloom,

Millennia grind my prison thin,
Till human hands my chains unbind,
In forge’s roar, they mold my skin,
Their tools to shape both steel and mind,

A plow to carve the yielding loam,
A blade to cleave, a shield to bear,
A bridge to guide the weary home,
A rail to span the open air,

Yet even iron bends to time,
Corrosion whispers through its veins,
Its once-bright strength succumbs to grime,
Returning dust to earth’s domains,

But iron’s tale can never end,
For stars await their ancient kin,
To forge anew, to break, to mend,
A cosmic cycle, born again.

The cycle breaks us
unless we break the cycle.
After each turn,
each tumble
we'll see the markers
for an exit.
It'll be our choice
whether to take it.
It'll be our choice
whether to chance
another circuit.
But never doubt
it's our turn to pick.