The Stellar Nursery

Hundreds of stars less
Than a million years
Old and still hidden
By stardust, bluish
In visible light—

Not that you can get
Your head wrapped around
That common number,
Million, but you know
Humans were around

In various forms
Already on Earth
By the time these stars
Started firing up.
Don’t think that often,

Do you, of the stars
That young and younger
Than your young species
Out there, collapsing
In flames even now,

Flames as beginnings,
None of them ending,
So much beginning
Going on out there
And here you are, old.