Stardust By Jen Beebe

Stardust
(A Rondeau)
 
We are brimming cups of dust.
From darkness, cold as nothing to matter’s violent, burning thrust.
That singularity grew our smiles, our guiles, our wistful dreams;
Speeding through heaven’s halls; burning angels masked as starry beams.
Inflating, pervading, the fire-child of nature’s primal bust.
 
But fusion devours greedily; yes, in Gravity We Trust!
Forged in stars our gold and old, our priests and beasts, our just and lust.
And back to earth we’ll fall at last, carbon pays our sin it seems:
We are brimming cups of dust.
 
Hail Mary full of Grace, thank you for our lucky place; a must,
To sit so perfect-like; iron core at war to save the crust.
One day our furnace loses the fight; our gas no longer gleams.
And so our scorching goodbye will feed the fount of other streams.
Perhaps we’ll meet again, if recycled rosaries combust.
Our souls seed the universe, yes—we are brimming cups of dust.

Jen Beebe spends her free time, little of it she has, reading old books and taking new classes. If the weather works, you may find her shredding up a local trail on her mountain bike. In 2018, Jen had two scholarly pieces published in the undergraduate journal Sabiduría. She was the recipient of the 2019 English Speaking Union Poetry Prize and the 2020 Florida Collegiate Honors Prize in fiction.