Rover related writing Options

[djellison]

Some of you may have spotted Stuarts poem over in the 5-wheels thread, and rather stupidly I culled it ( in light of the new rules ) instead of moving it to here - because it's an excellent piece...hopefully he can repost it in here..

A bit of googling around and I found this

http://www.sffworld.com/community/story/1150p0.html

If you like MER, if you like Mars - read it...it's a stunning short story, almost had me in tears. Nico, you HAVE to read it, same with you Ustrax - it's utterly brilliant - it captures my visions of the future of the Columbia Hills very well indeed.

Doug

[Tesheiner]

Remember when he posted this one at the other MER forum. Another very good one.

The Spirit of Christmas
http://www.sffworld.com/community/story/1153p0.html

[MahFL]

That is a nice short story.

[Stu]

Thanks everyone for the wonderful reviews, wow...!

For those that missed it first time round...


THE SPIRIT OF EXPLORATION

I am tired. So tired.
Scratching, biting dried-blood dust
Coats and smothers me,
Eating at me, into me,
Planting itches I can never scratch.

I am lame. Where once
I used to dash across this ruddy, rocky land
I can now only crawl; limping
Like a dusty crone
From weathered stone to weathered stone.

Once I scaled a mountain:
High above this boulder-cluttered land stood I,
A martian Queen, triumphant!
But now the hills laugh cruelly
As I drag my useless wheel. Exhausted.

Half a thousand frozen sols
Ago I knew no fear!
Laughing, I scorned the shrunken Sun,
Mocking its meagre, half-hearted heat;
Now I long for its waning warmth.
As dervish dust devils dance giddily past,
Mocking me, scorning my crawling quest
For that same Sun’s precious touch
My blood is ice, I feel it crack
As I haul myself onwards… onwards…

But if I die here, They will find me
One day, after travelling from the Evening Star.
Warm arms will surround me, wrap around me,
Lift me out of my rusted, dusty grave
And brush me clean once more.

One day I’ll stand behind walls of glass,
Warm again, clean again;
Honoured and worshipped by wide-eyed
Martian children not yet born on the day I died.
Their Columbus.

© Stuart Atkinson 2006


As I said, not giving up on our brave gal... sure there's a lot more life left in her yet!

[chris]

Stu,

I didn't see this the first time, and I'm so glad you reposted it. Lovely.

Chris

[Toma B]

Stuart Atkinson, this is just lovely poem...I have already read it when you posted it first time, but now I will copy-paste it into a file and SAVE it for some day....later...
Maybe someday this song will be engraved into that glass covering Spirit on Mars...
LOVELY!!!

P.S.
Maybe someday somebody will write a poem about Opportunity...

[Stu]

Maybe someday somebody will write a poem about Opportunity...

Working on it right now By the way, one of the stories on that page Doug VERY kindly put a link in to is all about Oppy. In fact, there's a whole bunch of Spirit-related fiction there, with more to come.

Thanks everyone for the feedback, much appreciated.

[djellison]

The Opportunity one is cool, somehow you got through the whole thing without using the phrase "Eagle"

Doug

[Nix]

A bit of googling around and I found this
...
http://www.sffworld.com/community/story/1150p0.html

If you like MER, if you like Mars - read it...it's a stunning short story, almost had me in tears. Nico, you HAVE to read it, same with you Ustrax - it's utterly brilliant - it captures my visions of the future of the Columbia Hills very well indeed.

Doug

Thanks Doug, I had read that one, and assumed you knew about it -it is indeed a terrific piece. Stu has an amazing way of telling, I've enjoyed his work a lot.

Nico

[Bob Shaw]

Doug:

I'm devastated that my pome wasn't selected for immortality too.

I'd wrote it all meself, too.

Apart from the good bit.

Bob 'Topaz' Shaw

[Stu]

Toma: Maybe someday somebody will write a poem about Opportunity...

Well, here you go... bit longer this one as I struggled to leave out things Oppy has seen and done. In the end I had to cut out the meteorite, heat shield, and a few other things because it was getting unwieldy, but anyway, hope a few of you like it. I can't make the beautiful pictures many of you here do, I have to use words instead to bring my Mars, and its nobility, to life. Not sure if I manage it, but it's always fun trying!

ACROSS MERIDIANI

I woke – cold and cramped
After half a year of silent, foetal sleep
To feel grit sting my startled face.
Unfolding, unfurling my silicon wings,
A bright metal butterfly, newborn on the New World
I ached to see the Sun –

Yet of that blessed Sun: no sign.
Instead I stared, aghast, at a rearing wall
Of ochre dust and ruddy rock.
Surrounding me, confining me.
Imprisoned in an Eagle’s nest I watched
The exiled sky and cried.

That sky, shrunk to a porthole,
Brightened, darkened, brightened again for
Endless day after endless day.
No summer or sunset, merely shades
Of purple, pink and plum that waxed
And waned then waxed pale again.

But in my sunken prison – wonders:
Layer upon lapping layer of ancient, crumbling stone
Stared back at me from The Walls; berries by the billion
Glinted around me, here gathered in a hollow, there hissing
And rolling towards me in a torrent as I turned
My unblinking eyes towards the sky and saw – the stars!

An eternity passed, or so I thought,
Before I left that place; my tortured soul
For myriad tormented sols screamed to be
Set free, to leave El Capitan behind and climb
Up to touch the shining sky again!
To feel the sun- and star- and Earthlight on my face…

At last, at last – the Overworld!
In all directions: the horizon, an alien world revealed
In all its ochre, dune-decorated glory!
Above me a sky magnificent and monstrous loomed,
Dwarfing all; a cloak of shimmering light
Embroidered with sequin stars throughout Mars’ frigid night…

Laughing, away from my imprisoning eyrie fled I!
Commanded by The Makers to trek
O’er the dusty dune sea of old Meridiani
To Endurance, my first Abyss.
A soft-hued sapphire lantern shining in the sunset glow,
Earth guided me, comforted me
As sol after sol I slogged between the rippled banks
Of dirt until, one sunrise, a jagged edge drew near.
Looking down – more dunes, far, far below
Time-sculpted waves of tan and tawny fines;
To one side: cliffs of crumbling, slumbering stone
On all others, grim mineral gargoyles leered mischievously…

Then, In, a plunge into the Abyss, the New world
Tilting round as I tiptoed down the rocky ramp
That led into Endurance’s dusty cellar
To roam, for a hundred sols or more, past spires
Of stone already old when Earth was young;
Past Wopmay, some ancient martian monster’s
Fossilised, discarded brain, to stand
Beside the wind-whipped dunes and watch them
Glint like diamond dust as the sky frothed with stars above.
And yet, e’en surrounded by such wonders still
I yearned for the freedom of the open sky
And the eternal Earth to steer me Homewards by…

At last I climbed, so slow, so slow until finally my
Beloved sky returned; my wheels kissed solid, steady rock
Once more and I left my first Abyss behind,
Fleeing south into the even wider, even deeper dusty sea
That stood between me and The Makers’ grail:
Victoria!

Sols blurred together now; Time’s very ticking stalled
As I pushed on into the sea, its waves turning and twisting
Around and across my path so wickedly
I screamed and cursed their birth,
Whilst above me the Sun shone peacefully, endlessly,
Watching my journey unfold - watching coldly as,
For a tortured time I was entrapped.
My wheels, entombed in dust like flies in seeping, sucking amber
Froze and I could move no more than I could fly.
Imprisoned again, this time in a cruel Purgatory I
Could only watch the season shift around me,
As becalmed as a ship on a silent, sullen sea.

Then free, and surging south again,
Savouring, relishing once more the feel
Of the dust beneath my wheels hissing and swishing away!
Before me now, the final challenge,
A window into this poor world’s pummelled past:
Victoria. My third – my last – Abyss.

The Makers hearts beat fast at the thought of it,
Imagining, dreaming of the images I will take
From its vertiginous, ancient edge.
But will I have the strength to see such wonders?
None will say. All know, as do I,
I should not be here today; each sunset could be my last.

I know I may die here, alone Between Places,
Victoria’s heart never seen.
No monument for me on the crater’s sharp edge,
Nor statue bearing my name; just my carcass
Picked-clean by Meridiani’s vulture winds,
A rusted scrap-pile at the end of meandering tracks.

But am I frightened? Afraid? No. My heart is at peace;
My life should have been over by now.
Many things I have seen were not meant to be seen –
Not by me, not this time, anyhow.
Nor am I lonely; I am never alone
As I stride to Victoria’s edge;
A million souls walk with me,
Their names etched onto my unbeating heart
Telling me stories to make Time fly faster,
They tell me of things I can never have seen;
Sharing with me their memories of their lush, living world,
Lets me picture how Mars might have been.

Her volcanoes rising from sun-dappled oceans,
Cotton wool clouds at their peaks;
Mighty Marineris – Sol System’s Grand Canyon –
A slender lake bordered by green
All sheltering beneath a towering sky
As blue as a kingfisher’s wing…
I ache that I came here 3 billion years late
To see such beautiful things.

But that past is a mirage, a melancholy memory,
The future is what I must face.
Ahead of me – Victoria, two bumps on the skyline,
Distant sirens singing my name.
Had robots gods I would pray to mine now:
Let me reach her before I die!

Let me stand on the edge of my final abyss,
Gaze down at the dunes far below;
Let me read from those pages of ancient Mars’ history,
Sheaves of Time-wearied, star-hardened stone
And show The Makers the secrets They yearn for –
Let me find what They sent me to seek.
Let me answer Their questions, solve Their mysteries -
Let The Makers be proud of me…

But don’t send me to die there, down in the dust
Exiled from the sun and the stars.
I have travelled so far, done all They have asked,
Been obedient.
When my wheels turn their last, and my dusty eyes dim,
Let me take my last breath standing tall
With the distant horizon calling to me –
Not another imprisoning wall.

© S Atkinson 2006

[Toma B]

Beautifull!!!
You really did it!!!
Bravo!!!

[Stu]

New short story about Opportunity and Victoria crater here

[Stu]

Inspired by the stunning work our ImageMage's collaborated on recently for the "Solset panorama"...

El Dorado Dusk

At solset, this world is glorious.
Shadows lengthen, stretching
Lazily across a landscape surrendering to the night.

Colours deepen, senses sharpen;
Beauty swathes the ugliest
Boulders in an ochre cloak of bruised and burnished gold.

Shooting stars skip giddily o’erhead
Even before the Sun has fled
Abandoning El Dorado to the stark, Noachian Dark.

And yet, in Ancient Ages
Water, not dust, this silent basin filled
Beneath an aching sky as blue as the Dusk Star’s sapphire hue.

My rocks, kissed by raindrops -
Tears shed for Life’s Lost World –
Glistened like jewels in the feather-soft light of dawn.

But no salty sea surges here now.
Though once these rugged rocks felt
The vaguest tickle, the briefest, tenderest touch of Life
They are now skeletons of stone;
Time first bathed and soothed them
But now has dried and cracked these stones to splintered bone.

And yet, at solset, Beauty.
This cold world lovingly painted gold.
When Men come here, they will see this Temple of Light, and cry.

© Stuart Atkinson 2006

[dilo]

Stuart, I discovered only now this thread ( ) and I must congratulate with you for poetry and novels...
Is this your real-life work?