"Why I Do Not Fear Death" by Tim O'Neill

This poem was included in an e-mail from The Brights:

Why I Do Not Fear Death

To me, the dozen billion years
(a time scale we can't comprehend)
that passed before my day of birth
give comfort for the coming end.
To know that not one atom in
my body at the age of five
remains within me still today
changes the meaning of "alive."
And all the billions yet to pass
after my carcass has decayed
are bookends for a single life
so precious, by their vastness, made.

-Tim O'Neill