Tilting

Depending how much distance
Varies, inclination can
Mean more than proximity,

As on Earth, where the seasons,
The lengths of the days and nights,
Ignore perihelion

To chase their inclinations.
You can’t feel the sun grow near,
Just more or less. When your side’s

Tilted away, you grow cold.
Human affection also
Follows inclination more

Closely than it tracks distance—
Fact celebrated often
In all manner of love songs.

You have us to thank for this,
The airiness of gestures
And your spoken languages,

The enciphered persistence
Of scripts keeping messages
Encoded for centuries

And circling around the globe.
Language annihilated
Distance first, and staked the claims

Of absence. If you’re fonder
Of someone farther away
Right now than the one you’re with,

Remember this. Keep in mind,
However, that while Earth’s tilt
Remains largely regular,

Your coded messages grow
Weightier and weightier.
How much lurching can life take

Until no heart can weather
Impassioned suffocation,
Bitter cold hibernation?