Earth was never meant to live this long.
She was supposed to die with her sister, Mars, years ago. She's been sick, plagued by ice age chills, fever swings, and marks on her complexion.
But I knew Earth when she was beautiful, and now that she's not, I still remember.
It's a shame I can only see her every seventy years. But that's the rules of the cosmos, as the mathematical gears of the universes laws bring us together and sperate again. Our relationship was long distance, but each time I returned, she looked worse, more tiresome, more feeble.
"Earth," I cried, swinging by her in an arcing hug, "Earth, you cannot leave me now. You cannot leave me alone, to travel in this solar system for seventy years, and have only sadness when I finally reach you."
"Halley, my comet, my love." Said Earth in my embrace, "I fear I am near my end. I have waited this long to see you, and I do not know if I can wait again."
"No," I cried, "Surely there is a way. A way for me to spend the rest your days with you."
Earth was silent, then she said, "There is one way. I will fill a creature with my spirit, but my spirit will sleep until you arrive. Seventy years alseep, and one awake, and I will spend all those ones with you."
So Earth poured her spirit into a new being she named man, and every seventy years, as I flew back, she awoke. Now millions of eyes watch me pass, and I see her in every one of them. But though she ages slower, death still comes for her. It comes as her spirit slowly falters in men, and they forget her, and she departs their bodies an minds, and they too will fall to waste.
But until that time will pass, I get to see her every seventy years. She sees me every one of her waking days.
I now leave a sparkling tail, as tears fall behind me, because I fear her last day is soon.
And even though she has so little left, men depart her with the remaining bits of her spirit, stealing it from me, traveling where I shall never see her again.
