"I will say it once more : the poem is an Egyptian barge of the dead, loaded with everything necessary for life." - Mandelstam
(In other words the language of poetry is seeded with death - but only in this way is it capable of bearing everything. . .)
Time, if it's a living entity of some kind, would have to trump death - because that appears to be the obvious terminus. Maybe time is a game we're playing - a play (it would have to be a miracle play).