Thoreau says vital heat,
and yes, every person burns,
each an internal combustion engine,
thirty million cylinders a second
igniting, mitochondria brokering 
marriages between glucose and oxygen.

And, in the beginning, trillions upon trillions 
of newborn atoms colliding 
in the exploding wombs of stars, 
hot progeny, strange unions 
in the molten soup of space,
the whole thing as fiery and violent 
as a pantheon of Greek gods. 

But from that, water,
hydrogen and oxygen conjoining,
vapor and ice, rivers, lakes, 
seas frozen inside a red planet,
oceans sprawling across a blue globe;
the lilting laughter of water
dancing down a rock-strewn mountainside, 
little pools of genesis doing their
magic in depressions along a shore; 
each living cell a chalice 
holding a sacrament of fluid,
every burst of fire within that bubble
releasing vapor into the world.

Death comes on a dry wind
that sucks leaves brittle,
the hydraulics of trees failing
to feed their vast green canopies,
heads turned gray, seed gone dormant, 
Tantalus thirsting for rain
to moisten a parched mind.