Stars
It wasn't half a billion years until
The first-born stars had died to make the stuff
We're made of—even then a slide downhill
From symmetry to chaos sure enough.
For everything is broken, even stars,
Even the cores of atoms, even space
Is broken, and nothing can unmake the scars
Of time which finally unmake every place.
Like you, the stars tonight are beautiful
And dying—what could ever matter more?
No simpler way could be as magical,
For we are still those stars that went before,
And with the Hubble circling in the night
We see their light, almost as old as light.
