IRON

(I)

As long ago as forever can be

the heavens sought order in chaos.

All properties were assimilating

as billions of bodies and galaxies.

I was dispersed here in the third orbit

of this primordial sun. No life,

only cosmic forces and mysterious

properties: gravity, light, and matter:

a delicate balance for infinity.

I was an element of the newborn earth.

(II)

Time doesn't matter to matter.

Not much does to inorganic mass.

Time passes along as strings of events,

bringing subtle changes- like miracles!

I've watched it unfold- I witnessed

creation! It seems only yesterday

the first cell slipped from rain, to land, to sea.

Then another, forming complex structures.

Enter man, his mind, and passion for fire.

(III)

The finest work in ages, this man-

God fearing, fragile, exposed, but clever-

evolving into the great thinking beast-

able to learn, to reason, to conceive

abstract ideas- and from them create tools.

I've watched and waited through ages of stone

and bronze, hoping that he would detect me-

unearth me from groundless consistency.

Unleash his resourcefulness and cast me

into useful implements- but tools of war?!

(epilogue)

Man didn't matter to matter. It's hardly

worth the time for inorganic mass

to concern itself with things uncontrolled.

Time passes along in strings of events-

subtle changes, beginnings and ends.

The future will be as the past has been.

Was it worth it for God to create this

miracle to expose his sense of irony?

-dp-