Personal Relativity

They tell me time seems

to speed up the older people get
because each day, month, or year
becomes a smaller and smaller
percentage of the overall total.
I hate math, so cold, so correct.

I recall school years
that dragged on for decades.
A magical summer or two
lasted a millennium. Then

the time wagon turned into
a bullet train and five years
became a minute. Whole years
vanished like peas down a sink.

Today a woman said to me,
"I'm 70 years old. What
happened?" I said, "Ask that
bastard, time. Happy birthday!"

Baseball and Relativity

Einstein hated games,

perhaps because the universe

plays for keeps. A curveball

curves and dives only on 

Earth, which functions by

its own attractive rules.

That moment after a hometown

hero (last week a goat, love

is relative) strokes a fastball,

rejecting its trajectory, bottom

of the ninth, lasts for a gasping

forever. An entire childhood

passes, then rises into an adult

roar, crashes into stadium space,

assisted by moons of adrenalin.

Everyone, including physicists,

shuffles out, treading on wrappers,

kernels, and ticket stubs,

heavily held to life again,

to the heroism of just getting

by, glued to illusory Now. 

hans ostrom 2021

Walk In the Sunshine

Walk in the Sunshine


How should I walk in the sunshine?
--Winter's been so long, the sun
so seemingly distracted.
My shadow will come back
and stick to my feet. Also,
I'll need to get used to moving
and being glad at the same time.

"It will come back to you," people
say. They say, "You'll remember how
to walk in the sunshine." They don't
know this. Nothing comes back. We
make up memories, ask questions,
and behave as if we're points of reference.
And did I tell you about the avalanche?

That's re-routed everything around here.
Anyway, the upcoming interval doesn't
know some people call it Spring and everybody
calls it something or other. Time reflects
not on its own situation. Time is completely
unselfconscious, unaware that it seems
to stalk us constantly. Time's always constant,
in spite of Relativity. No questions occur to
time. Nothing. It knows how to walk
in the light of every star.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom