Momentum

I’m driving, watching clouds,
Seeing shapes, sometimes dancing, changing,
Sometimes countries, trees, seahorses.
Pale baby blue above the wisps,
Shades of yellow, cream, bright green
Djilba colours by the road.
Enjoying peace, quiet thoughts
Drifting as my wheels take me on
And the sun graces the world with her rays.
Another Subaru ahead, different model,
Same age, same purple-blue, iridescent in the light,
But also red,
That dust brown rust red,
That dirt sand desert red of outback roads,
Of adventure, space, vistas years wide and
Eons high, that red Australian dirt I know and love and
Miss.
And I pass them,
Glancing in the window, driver to driver,
But she doesn’t see me.
She has her own destination.
A place I know nothing of
And never will.
And I realise there are thousands, millions,
More,
People I don’t know and never will,
People I pass once, in a moment’s breath,
In the rumble of wheels on a spring morning,
In the pace of rubber soles or the
Race of a metro train. Or high above and over all this dirt
On an airplane’s wing. We might share dreams,
Or place, or neither; we might share
Red dust on blue cars.
But we will live our lives only ever
Passing by.