Stellar Retrodictions, 1 of 2

Stellar Retrodictions

By Sumadastron the Time-Lost

1:

Alchemic furnace, far and bright

Affixed betwixt collapse and blast;

A beacon shining in the night

Until its heart burns out at last.

2:

Four water-making motes shall meet

To make a mote of lesser mass

And thus release a burst of heat

To hold aloft an orb of gas.

3:

The small and dim burn in the sky

A million million years afire;

The middle sooner bloat, then die;

The big by blast, so vast, expire.

4:

Too light to light the carbon way

Its heart grown small and hot and old

Its outer layers blow away

Evaporating to a coal.

5:

Its burnt-out core can fuse no more

For iron’s fire cools the place;

It falls, and with alchemic roar

The rest blasts outward into space.

6:

A stellar coal, self-immolate;

Why doesn’t it give up the ghost?

Its one support for its own weight;

The pressure of difference of motes.

7:

A smaller cinder, lower down;

Each teaspoon has a mountain’s mass;

An atom’s heart, as big as town;

An orb’s penultimate collapse.

8:

Two massive cinders in the night

In spiral dance around they race

Until they smash and blast out light

And shake the very shape of space.

9:

By second messenger afar

We hear a crash! The heavens ring!

O fatal chirp of fallen stars!

From stellar smash, alchemic bling!

10:

A star as dark as night

Where space and time both bend

With no escape for light

And all known law must end.