near the beginning
close enough to touch
time’s first tick and
long before the first tock

the rules were
still unwritten
no apple had yet
been bitten
no frame of mind
was there
to hang crooked
from my soul

in fact no up or down
no left or right
nor right nor wrong
no mirror in which
to see our tears

these would all
be invented later
by man impressed
with himself
as no animal
before or since

the rules set down
in those first fractions
of time did not rhyme
they could have
been written differently

with the imprecision
of a different logic
where one did not equal
and no alphabet spelled
love and hate
with gunfire and bombs

where no man
bought and sold love
where colliding protons
absorbed the impact
like two lovers
absorbing each other
and creating peace

03/22/2010