Toward the Low-Energy State

Toward the Low-Energy State



Forth the primordial radiance flares and seethes
Symmetry rent and discrete forces bequeathed
Distension ensues, space-time unsheathes
As a shroud swathes the reigning light beneath.

Protons churn and with their antipodes quelled
An imparity serves, not all matter thus felled
Nuclei bound, wherethrough elements newly weld
The formative fires cool, the vault at last unveiled.

Within beclouded depths the purest of stars ignite
Metals forged by these besprent hearths alight
Spiral galaxies aswirl, globular clusters unite
Basking worlds accrete, with each night sky bedight.

Each mote of stardust affords the elixir of life
Through supernovae and rebirths the empyrean lingers rife
Sentience blooms and in rich abundance fares blithe
But the strewn tinder exhausts and the abiding stars writhe.

The greatest and brightest thereof, fiercely the first to wane
The main sequence follows, dim white dwarfs remain
Stellar gleeds fading and shrinking by collapse foreordained
The universe benighted, a darkness, lonely, cold and immane.

Coaxed by gravity, masses piecemeal collide
Black holes engorge and shred fodder by tides
Whole galaxies relax and solar systems divide
Stray dark matter snared and meagre warmth it provides.

The bleak cosmos, diffused, all things wended astray
By quantum peradventure the hardy protons decay
Vigintillion years come to pass, black holes radiate and fray
All things trend to death, a low-energy state evermore staid.