Star gazing (or what I learned from one hour with Stephen Hawking)

We are made from the stuff of stars,

in the beginning there was

no outside, everything was inside

gravity is the hero of the universe

it pulls together what has been exploded

iron does not create energy when it fuses

so the fire at the heart of the star

starts to die

the death of a star is called a super nova

it is the birth of something new

black holes form when a star

comes to the end of its life

when a star explodes it makes a cloud

called a nebula

nebuli are beautiful

our sun was created when a whole lot

of hydrogen fused together

the earth is made from minerals and rock

the universe is expanding, ever expanding

those stars that look red in the night sky,

they are galaxies moving away from us

things are born, they create energy

they explode and all the bits

are blown away, then eventually

the bits are pulled back together

and something new is formed, that

is how stuff is made

there is more than optimism to this

it is expansion, it is wonder

it lifts us out of ourselves, physics

is a religion, but there is

no punishment and no reward

it is just exploding and dispersing

and fusing, each body is an atom

that is made in the same way the

universe was formed

my body in the night sky

is dancing, I run on the earth

which lifts to hold me

my serious face, like gravity,

slowly pulls objects together

and turns in on itself

when it goes unchallenged,

bring hydrogen! bring helium!

touch the gold and silver and platinum

that are forged in the heart

of an exploding star, the cosmos

is born from imperfection

mistakes make life

a perfect state is a dead state

nothing comes from stasis

see where the blobs of gas are thicker

see where they are thin

in between is where

the good stuff happens

the stuff of stars

the stuff of us.