Sister Mary Appassionata to the Introductory Astronomy Class: Heartbeat and Mass, Every Last Breath

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament
of the heaven to divide the day from the night;
and let them be for signs, and for seasons,
and for days and years.

--Genesis

For every moment of light we win,
each beat of the heart in each heat
of the race, Old Sol sheds 4 million tons
of mass. In a mere 8 billion years

we'll be nothing but chunks of glacier 
hurtling like manholes blown from sewers
through light years of limitless dark.
To live means bearing out these days

like candles through drafty mansions
while above us angry stars hiss like
garlic cloves in smoking olive oil,
souls racing down their wicks. Beyond

days and nights where can we be?
Each inhalation means we've won reprieve.
Each exhalation means the only sentence
long and short enough to fit the crime.