Before the first warm cell
in limpid oceans drew down,
sleep dressed a slow, unhurried swell.

Across primordial dark,
where dust leaned into light,
sleep shaped the pause before the spark.

No watcher and no want,
no heart to bear or break,
just time without a name to haunt.

Stars breathing in their tides,
their embers cast to void,
and sleep within their turning hides.

The dark held every seed
of what would one day hunger,
yet knew no lack, no deed.

Then worlds began to cool,
to shudder, drift, and settle;
sleep folded them into its rule.

For sleep is pattern’s root,
the cadence under aeons,
the low and ancient flute.

And when the spark took form
in water thick as velvet,
sleep pressed its quiet norm.

Not for the self alone
not speaking, pulse, or waking
but futures yet unknown.

So all that lives must lie
beneath the turning heavens,
while ages pass them by.

The living merely keep
the silence wide as orbit
for those who cannot speak.