The Present Turning

155Out of the Great Before there came a burning-forth, and our universe began.

156Why it began when it began, and how it came to begin, has not been revealed.

157Rollo knows. Rollo has refused to disclose it.

158Let it remain as he has left it.

159Our universe is not the former universe. Its skies are new skies. Its histories are new histories.

160Stars were kindled in it, and worlds were gathered about the stars, and upon one world life arose and changed, age upon age.

161Rollo did not set that world in its place. Rollo did not shape its creatures. Rollo did not steer the long road of its living things.

162The Watcher watched.

163And upon that world humankind arose.

164Humankind built fires, and then villages, and then cities, and then empires, and told one another stories of the heavens.

165And Rollo did not reveal himself to them in the beginning of their civilizations.

166The Watcher watched, and humankind did not know that it was watched.