Older Than Your Name For Old

Thirteen point eight, that's the count on the clock Before there was a clock, before there was a rock Nine billion years pass before the sun even starts Four and a half more till the Earth's got a heart

Older than old, older than your name for old Older than the story your grandmother told The mountain wasn't always there, the ocean wasn't always blue Everything you're standing on is newer than you knew

Three and a half billion since the first cell split A membrane holding a chemical fit Bacteria ran this whole show alone For longer than anything with skin or a bone

Older than old, older than your name for old Every fossil is a letter this planet never sold The dinosaurs are closer to us than to the start That's the kind of number that rearranges your heart

Three hundred thousand years since a face like yours Blinked at a fire behind some cave door That's barely a breath, weighed against the rest Against the record this ground keeps, layer by layer, no rest

Older than old, older than your name for old Hold the number loose, let your whole chest go cold Then warm again, you're a blink that got to see The longest story ever told, and it wrote itself through me