The beginning was liquid fire
A rippling flame intense so intense
It did not rip atoms to shreds
It did not even let them form.

Expansion brought cooling and a different kind of fire
Luminous gas lighting the darkness
Fuelling atomic furnaces
Forging the elements of life

The first stars died in explosive fire
Casting themselves outwards
Swallowing their own corpses
Sparking new fires

Their successors bore children
Great flaming companions
Quiet plodding giants
Tiny rocky children

The rocks cooling from the fiery heat of their birth
Looked perhaps dead
The fire gone out.
But they bore a new kind of fire

Warmed by their parents
The ashes of their grandparents bore fruit
Slowly bonds and interactions
Formed life

Defying entropy, complexity crawled out of the embers
To reach again for the fire above.

—by Malcolm-Rannirl