THE SURFACE OF LAST SCATTERING

As for the beginning, you will be forever blind. The first light will never reach you, the speed too great, and you too far away. You will sooner comprehend the minds of stones, the music in the hearts of suns.

Do you even remember, do you understand your dreams? There was a white-robed, hooded figure in your garden, a dead rabbit who came to life and hid beneath your bed, a silver cup that held the deep-red souls of all your friends.

My father’s last words the night that you were born– He did not speak of the night I was conceived. Before my sister died, she said how good of them to come– My great-aunt as she departed sang universe revealed—

Nothing beyond the primal opacity, that background of heavy light. Ending beyond time– every stellar furnace out, each black hole dissipated, every molecule of breath accounted. Oh, universe. Revealed.