Relative To One Another

I am slowing down as you are speeding up and we pass at an angle to time

They go up and we move down with the vast oceanic swells between us

Rotating slowly I see the beauty of the stars and galaxies all around us

Spinning too fast in my time I became disoriented and confused

I am folding up my ragged tent as you stake your newest claim

Her mother can no longer stand but your child has just learned to crawl

I am passing you as he is passing me and we cannot yet get out of their way

There is a new well in your village and we celebrate by our swimming pool

I read my book as you send one-fingered messages off somewhere into the ether

The snow that sent you off the road was welcomed by the farmers

We carved different ellipses around an invisible center of gravity

They waste more than they can ever use as we eke by on castoff remnants

I traveled quite slowly but was struck head-on by a speeding semi

When at last I returned it seemed nothing had changed but no one recognized me, either

The loss of the microscopic diatoms spelled disaster for the whales

Parts of seconds were to seconds as seconds were to the age of the universe

Her long lifetime could not be seen on the smallest of geologic time scales

All their simpering adulation could not push his boat across to heaven

We pass closely heading in different directions in all four known dimensions

Their silly propaganda changes timbre, Doppler shifting with the passing election

We observe a planet perturbing its sun as we are swarmed by microscopic mites

We attack our enemies while trillions of our cells hungrily struggle for their blood supply

Gentle winter sunlight shows the soft side of nuclear fusion on a truly massive scale

We destroy expensive, sophisticated satellites with simple high-speed brute force collisions

I am spinning slowly around in circles but you - You are really making a mark

A sun-glassed business woman phoning in a leased car distractedly strikes a fawn

I am sliding down the hill smiling, never to ascend again

He still climbs upward, his fatigue masked by the anticipation of the run

We both stand quite still as my train leaves you behind at the station

I briefly continue moving in small arcs after stepping off the merry-go-round

This seemingly small increase in temperature rippled through the biosphere

The insects hatched early, the chicks starved and the trees were decimated

My bobber went down just as you roared by shouting hoarsely from your speedboat

I sat down to be served as she struggled with the wood for their cooking fire

Our music and fireworks filled the air but not a sound went into space

I paused behind my muddy ox as your silvery jet gleamed far, far overhead

The difference in our ages would make a full lifetime for someone else

Our fossil bones would mix and date to plus or minus a thousand generations

The look in the eyes of the mutely destitute mother spoke too much to me

He thought disdainfully of all the little words he could ever hope to write

The poverty, filth, sickness, slave labor and lack of hope were as nothing -

Given the wondrous future paradise he learned of in the magnificence of the mosque

The clockwork universe was underpinned by the chaos of quantum uncertainty

Our most basic assumptions proved devastating to our ecological niche

I lay on my back with arms outspread in a field bright with spring flowers

20000 miles above, a geo-synchronous satellite moved right along with me

I breathed deeply as my beautiful vehicle turned oxygen into gases, poisonous to me

You survived by cutting firewood as your goats denuded the drying hillsides

He had his two sons and their daughter-in-laws, so he did not work any more

He strove hard to attain a corporate jet and to earn a 7 figure bonus every year

She remembered as a child that it snowed very heavily and it was always cold

Now, her obese youngsters went about smirkingly in baggy shorts and tees all year round

Each small change was imperceptible but the first and last photos were truly of different men

The runners showed amazing speed, but you casually drove by them so much faster

Dinosaurs dominated the earth for 160 million years but left here 65 million years ago

Our written history began about 5000 years ago with simple bookkeeping records

The sunlight that sustains me takes 8 minutes from its surface to my forehead

Four and a half years later, at 186k mps, it reaches the very nearest star

He looked at me with those soft brown eyes and I just had to stroke his ear

A long line of crowded stinking semis brought more cattle to the slaughterhouse

I am slowing down as you are speeding up, but for a while we have communications

I stand still on this rotating earth, orbiting the sun which revolves about the Milky Way as it moves towards constellation Hydra at a mere 600 kilometers per second