Night Patrol

Shooting Stars! Meteorites!
Satellites traversing the sky
signalling Earth; the life
up here is your own
reflected back to you
courtesy of your local antennae-in-the-sky.

(Eccentricity calculated
that meteorite
just in passing
merely a practise
performance.)

Meteorite velocity
not that of humankind's satellites
collisions resonate
but in the void, however vast
there are possibilities.
The signal is the message.

Gravitational attractions
atmospheric deceleration
pre-encounter velocity
breathless potential;
inertia, reference the frame.

Earth's velocity no match
for the unmeasurable speed of
that catastrophic meteorite.

c. 2009 Rita Rosenfeld