Poem: "Birthdust"
This poem was prompted and sponsored by browngirl who got her inspiration from wcq who was writing about space dust and planetary formation. Here you can see that I've taken the hard science of stellar life cycles, accretion, and evolution ... and told that story in the language of myth.
Birthdust
In the beginning there was darkness,
and then there was light.
The light gathered itself into stars,
and the stars burned joyfully for millions of years.
Then entropy wrapped itself around the stars,
trying to smother their light.
The stars began to go out, and darkness grew.
The other stars wept frozen tears,
the first grief the universe had known.
But some of the stars had hearts too great
for the empty night to swallow whole.
They laughed in the face of entropy
and burst into scintillant veils of matter,
scattering their bright bones across the cosmos.
Eventually, they too went dark,
and entropy sniggered, thinking it had won.
Ashes to ashes.
Dust to dust.
The bones of the stars were strange things,
far heavier than the light that had made them.
Where they touched, they stuck together.
Mass bent the plane of spacetime into new shapes,
cradling new stars who quickened with colored fire.
Around these newborn heartfires,
the bones clattered in the cold dark, clinging and growing.
Thus the planets emerged.
Entropy snarled and wrapped itself around the planets.
They were dead things, rock and bone and absence of light.
They gave off none of the mighty energy of a star.
They were dead things. Weren’t they?
Yet deep inside the planets lay seeds of heat,
a hidden glow under miles of stone.
Something in them remembered those long-dead stars.
The planets turned their faces to the young suns that anchored them.
Entropy grew nervous.
It found the frozen tears of the stars and,
twining its tail around them,
sent comets spinning inward to batter the planets.
Ice melted in thickening atmospheres,
and tears became rain.
The memory of light awoke and became lightning,
starfire resurrected to dance across the skies.
It flashed through water and earth,
flinging them together with great force.
Then the power caught its own tail in its teeth
and began to replicate, assembling shapes in its own image,
shells of matter holding sparks inside.
Life had begun.
Entropy railed and clawed
but could not tear life from its rocky refuge,
for entropy was already outnumbered a trillionfold.
The stars laughed their luminous laughs
and burst their hearts into glorious blossom,
spreading the dust of birth throughout the cosmos.
Life turned its shining eyes
to the spangled night above
and yearned upwards.
Seeds floated on the breeze. Birds flew.
In time, minds opened like wings
and built vessels for their bodies to ride
into the space where stars dwell.
Telescopes trained on the heavens
witnessed the deaths of stars
and minds began to understand …
Ashes to fire.
Dust to flesh.
Birthdust
In the beginning there was darkness,
and then there was light.
The light gathered itself into stars,
and the stars burned joyfully for millions of years.
Then entropy wrapped itself around the stars,
trying to smother their light.
The stars began to go out, and darkness grew.
The other stars wept frozen tears,
the first grief the universe had known.
But some of the stars had hearts too great
for the empty night to swallow whole.
They laughed in the face of entropy
and burst into scintillant veils of matter,
scattering their bright bones across the cosmos.
Eventually, they too went dark,
and entropy sniggered, thinking it had won.
Ashes to ashes.
Dust to dust.
The bones of the stars were strange things,
far heavier than the light that had made them.
Where they touched, they stuck together.
Mass bent the plane of spacetime into new shapes,
cradling new stars who quickened with colored fire.
Around these newborn heartfires,
the bones clattered in the cold dark, clinging and growing.
Thus the planets emerged.
Entropy snarled and wrapped itself around the planets.
They were dead things, rock and bone and absence of light.
They gave off none of the mighty energy of a star.
They were dead things. Weren’t they?
Yet deep inside the planets lay seeds of heat,
a hidden glow under miles of stone.
Something in them remembered those long-dead stars.
The planets turned their faces to the young suns that anchored them.
Entropy grew nervous.
It found the frozen tears of the stars and,
twining its tail around them,
sent comets spinning inward to batter the planets.
Ice melted in thickening atmospheres,
and tears became rain.
The memory of light awoke and became lightning,
starfire resurrected to dance across the skies.
It flashed through water and earth,
flinging them together with great force.
Then the power caught its own tail in its teeth
and began to replicate, assembling shapes in its own image,
shells of matter holding sparks inside.
Life had begun.
Entropy railed and clawed
but could not tear life from its rocky refuge,
for entropy was already outnumbered a trillionfold.
The stars laughed their luminous laughs
and burst their hearts into glorious blossom,
spreading the dust of birth throughout the cosmos.
Life turned its shining eyes
to the spangled night above
and yearned upwards.
Seeds floated on the breeze. Birds flew.
In time, minds opened like wings
and built vessels for their bodies to ride
into the space where stars dwell.
Telescopes trained on the heavens
witnessed the deaths of stars
and minds began to understand …
Ashes to fire.
Dust to flesh.