Poems and Algorithms in an Aging Universe

Life is the death of stars,
Made mostly of star guts—
The heavy elements

Like carbon and iron
The cosmos didn’t have
Until primordial

Stars started to explode,
Old stars that aged and burst.
That’s what you need for life,

And life, on Earth at least,
Seems bound and determined
To echo this pattern,

With the primordial
Substances of living
Rupturing more and more

To yield weird, heavy things,
Like plastics and robots,
Poems and algorithms.