[X] My Assistant

[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?

[Stu]

I wish! No, I work in a Care home... in what I laughingly call my "spare time" I'm an author of children's science books, but no, the Mars poems and short stories are purely for me, (and you!), at least until I can get a publisher interested. I've been trying for ages, but, well, it's a slog.

[Nix]

Many thanks Stu, that's wonderful. It stirs up the exact emotion one would have out there I think.

The feeling of experiencing a bunch of locations the girls visited is in the mind of everyone of us addicts I reckon...but you sure know very good how to describe that sentiment.

It was very relaxing, I'm thinking about going early to bed and dream the dream - of walking over there, in the dust.

Nico

[Astro0]

Stu, About your poetry...one word: BRILLIANT
Astro0

[Stu]

Thanks Astro0, glad you liked it, just playing with words really.

Inspired by your Solset panorama - and the equally-beautiful versions others have created, too - I wrote a new story about how it will be seen, and thought of, in the future...

The Spirit Lingers

[hendric]

Broken wheel
White dust trail
Winter haven

[ustrax]

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

Doug...I've read long long time ago...
I'm Stu's work avid reader, a fan, an admirer, since the days of the beggining, the days of the quest.
I keep all his work well preserved, for me it's history and something tells me future generations will read it as legendary...
Love your work brother!

[djellison]

And - check out this months Planetary Report

Doug

[ustrax]

And - check out this months Planetary Report

Doug

I'm not a member, can you give a hint of what's about?

[djellison]

1) SHAME ON YOU

2) One of Stu's poems is in there.

DOug

[ustrax]

1) SHAME ON YOU

2) One of Stu's poems is in there.

DOug

Don't embarasse me before all this people...

[Stu]

Thought Victoria deserved a poem as we approach her...


VICTORIA

The name you christened me,
fair Victoria,
does not reflect the agony of my birth.
I am a scar,
a gaping, gawping hole
in this world’s weary body;
a scooped-out, sightless eye
forever fixed on
but unable to see the sky.

No-one saw me born;
no frightened eyes were shielded
by rapidly-raised hands
as my Father punched my Mother
Mars so hard, so brutally
her body shook for days,
leaving behind an open wound
that e’en an aeon
of drifting dust could never fill.

In my indignant, incandescent rage
at being born I
scattered shattered stone
out of my cooling crib;
vomited smoke and ash
into the lacerated sky,
banishing both cerulean sun and
ice bright stars until
my agony had ended.

Time passed – and ate away at me,
gnawing on my body like
a crow upon a corpse.
My edge, once smooth, a graceful
curve, jagged and ragged
became; a sore, saw-blade
shark-tooth sculpture
of crumbling stone, the
shattered bones of my angry youth
left protruding
from the ground to be wind-whittled
and hewn into grinning gargoyle
buttresses and balconies of
splintered, sharp-shard stone.

Leaving me hollow.

And now, lured here by
my Beacon’s ghostly lantern light
You come to me – a scurrying
metal messenger from the
Morning Star; impatient to lean over
the gory edge of my
opened chest and gaze down
at my dust-clogged heart to learn
more about my life?

Do not expect me to surrender
my sad secrets instantly – or easily.

I am worth more than that.

© Stuart Atkinson 2006

[jamescanvin]

Brilliant as usual Stu, great work.

James

[ustrax]

That metal messenger will have a word on that...

Great words Stu! In them we can navigate between worlds.

[angel1801]

I have always been looking for poetry about the MER rovers. And here I have found some!

I will store these wonderful poems on my harddisk so I can read them in the future.

[chris]

Stu,

Fantastic. Thank you

Chris

[Stu]

New story up here...

Meridiani Messenger

[Stu]

JOURNEY’S END

Through hushed halls they stalked - it seemed, for hours -
before reaching the place crudely
circled on his map. Padding past cases crammed
with Ratted, rust-hued stones; bone
-pale blades of evaporite; trays of slate-blue berries
by the score; a brain-sized metal meteorite
“Recovered”, said the sign, “from the edge of Endurance itself!”
until, at last, the Old One stood before his Grail.

“Is that it?” sighed the young martian,
face pressed against the glass,
staring past her own reflection
at the machine inside the case.
“It’s so small, it sounded bigger
in your stories, grandpa; you
made me think it was taller
than Tars Tarkas on his thoat!”

The old man simply smiled, and in
the silence of the darkened MER Museum
knelt down beside the sad-eyed girl
and told her: “Look again.
Spirit they christened her, and spirit
she had - more than many men I’ve known;
more than any gathering of gears and wire
had any right to have.”

The girl looked closer, shielding
her Sun-starved eyes from the spotlights’
glare, wondering how the rover’s
bird-frail, brittle body had not just survived
but thrived in Barsoom’s brutal cold;
if even half the Old One’s bedside tales were true
this rambler of rust and dust was more heroic
than Her Chieftain could ever dream to be…

Perhaps it had scaled mountains after all;
driven through dust devils’ dervish dances
to gaze down upon Great Gusev’s plain
and see Old Earth set with the Sun.
Maybe this fragile thing of rock-worn wheels
and dust-scratched glass had climbed boldly
onto Homeplate’s old, humped back and
rested there, reflecting Phobos’ frosty light..?

“I remember,” croaked the Old One, “how
we sat at our computers, click-a-clicking
through the night, watching picture after picture
come to life upon our screens;
We walked with her, every bone-dry weary mile;
when she went lame, dragging her leaden wheel behind
we would have picked her off the salt-choked ground
and carried her if we could - ”

But the girl could not hear; lured away
by more interesting, more glittery things in
other rooms she’d skipped on, leaving
him alone to gaze through the glass with Nav- and
Pan-cam memories clutching at his heart;
how he’d cheered on Landing Day, clapped
as someone screamed “She’s bouncing!”;
wept when he read the long-dreaded “She’s dead”…

You should not be seen here caged so cruelly,
thought the Old One, frail fingers
brushing ‘gainst her glass imprisoning walls;
She should have seen you as I imagined you:
staring at the sunset, stood tall
beneath titanic titian skies;
dust skipping o’er and filling the tracks
of your wheels, the wind whispering your name -

“Oh come quick!” sang a sudden voice, high
and Sun-bright from a gallery off to one side.
“It’s the Beagle, you know, the one that got lost!”
The Old One groaned, stood up and sighed
Forgive her, she’s young, one day she’ll understand
what you meant to those watching on Earth.
Then, blinking back tears, walked away from his lost love.
Remembering.

© Stuart Atkinson 2006

[Stu]

Self-explanatory really...


STEVE’S FAREWELL

We are alone now, you and I.
The others, in their bunny suits,
burning blue flames against the tall, ice-white
walls have all gone, home to loved ones,
lost ones, beds and bedtime stories
and, eventually, perhaps, dreams...
I could not sleep, not tonight, for sleep
would mean leaving you here alone
in this cold and lonely place
before exiling you from Earth forever –
unless, in some far future kindly colonists
dust you off, crate you up and send you
home again to us.
To me…

I watched you and your sister grow, from seeds
small as a thought to the things
of beauty you are now – tall and proud,
shining in this harsh, halogen-light,
waiting to be wrapped and packed, despatched
with all of Man’s inquisitive rage
to the Other World, that globe of stones
and bone dry fines which might,
when weary Earth has been bled dry,
one day become our Home.
Yet now, mere hours before you take
your leave of your proud parents, cocooned
inside your cushioned shroud,
some part of me screams “Stay!”

For there is danger there, my little traveller.
Others sent before you have been slain:
after leaving Earth to cheers and fanfare loud,
travelling through the void in innocent sleep
some smeared into glowing, ghastly trails,
brains dashed against Ares’ barely-there air;
others smashed to clouds of tinkling, twinkling
pieces, shattered metal, glass and dreams;
a few - swallowed whole like Jonah by Barsoom’s
cruel valleys, snow and seas of dust -
may wait there yet, wondering why
their plaintive cries have not been heard,
why no-one answered when they chirped
“I have arrived! What now..?”

Beware Gusev’s Darcy-dapper dust devils,
who will bow down before and flatter you with
cool requests to take their arm and dance.
Refuse them and their seductive songs, and live.

I envy you,
I fear for you
as I touch you one last time,
reach out with shaking, sterile hands
to feel the coldness of your skin;
wave frightened fingers slowly
past your shining, sightless eyes
that have never seen the Sun
just sun-bright bulbs, buzzing strip-lights,
highlights reflecting off flickering screens
and visors protecting the eyes
of we who dared imagine you,
then drew then built you, here,
in this day-less, night-less tomb.

Tomb? No, more a womb
for you are not yet born;
you will not breathe or move
or see or touch until this world
has curled halfway around the Sun
and you are on another.
But now, here, in these silent shadows
you are safe. The air, you breathe, scrubbed
& filtered clean is purer than angel breath, than love;
Here we have protected you, watched over you,
shielded you from the heat and horrors
of the world you soon will leave and,
looking back, will struggle to find
twinkling in Mars’ indigo dusk sky.

None of Earth’s warm, worm-mulched dirt
has ever touched your wheels yet you will steal
soon across cloying clays Ages old when Earth was young.
Our sky, its puffball clouds and sunsets gold
will all be alien to you, sights you have never seen.
A blessing, perhaps: no memories of rain
-dripping trees or falling leaves will taunt
or haunt you as you rove that dust-choked world.
You cannot keen for Earth’s cool streams
if their clear waters have never eased your thirst.
Yet… strange, so strange, to think the first
time you feel Sol’s rays touch your face
they will have passed and warmed
my world before reaching yours…

I love you, yet hate you for the sights
and scenes that will greet your wide eyes
as you emerge, blinking, from your soft cocoon,
stretching out your wings.
Your first solbreak will be grapefruit pink;
your first noon sky warm honey, smeared
with swirls and whorls of silvered cloud.
In all directions, rocks, each one a treasured page
ripped out in rage from Mars’ autobiography,
scattered by its feeble winds to land in
or block your path or lodge inside your wheels.
Two moons will race and chase
each other ‘cross the sky, dull grey, cratered skulls
grinning at you, laughing as you struggle on your way.

So, farewell. I will watch you –
the world will watch you - as you trek across
the ancient crater’s floor, dwarfed both by
the sky and expectations of your kin.

I am already proud of you.

© Stuart Atkinson 2006

[hendric]

Brings a tear to the eye, it does. Thanks Stu.

[ljk4-1]

About a star so often used by deep space probes to find their way...

Canopus

by Bert Leston Taylor

WHEN quacks with pills political would dope us,
When politics absorbs the livelong day,
I like to think about that star Canopus,
So far, so far away.

Greatest of visioned suns, they say who list 'em;
To weigh it science almost must despair.
Its shell would hold our whole dinged solar system,
Nor even know 'twas there.

When temporary chairmen utter speeches,
And frenzied henchmen howl their battle hymns,
My thoughts float out across the cosmic reaches
To where Canopus swims.

When men are calling names and making faces,
And all the world's ajangle and ajar,
I meditate on interstellar spaces
And smoke a mild seegar.

For after one has had about a week of
The argument of friends as well as foes,
A star that has no parallax to speak of
Conduces to repose.

http://poetry.poetryx.com/poets/127/

[Stu]

Just a quick note to invite you all to visit the new home of my MER/astronomy poems...

The'Verse

[chris]

Just a quick note to invite you all to visit the new home of my MER/astronomy poems...

The'Verse

Love the new one Stu. Great stuff, as always.

Chris

[dvandorn]

I enjoyed seeing your work in the latest edition of The Planetary Society's journal, Stu! Good work!

-the other Doug

[Stu]

Dedicated (not before time!) to all the people who so generously share their time and images with the rest of us... only had room to name a few, but thanks to ALL of you. You know who you are.

QUILTS

Settlers of old told
the stories of their lives on quilts
of rag and cloth. Hunched in cold cabins,
weathered faces lit by shafts
of sepia sunlight lancing down through
mossy roofs they sewed for hours,
recording births, deaths and dances
with needles flashing,
each flower-bordered square a
cross-stitch snapshot of their lives.

Quilts as living things: children
for the childless, great lace-cornered canvases
that grew and grew, stretching out
across Big Tables just as towns themselves
spread out across the plain,
relentless as an oil spill,
a tsunami of settlement that only
running out of continent could stall…

A century passes.
Time and Wright flies.
Apollo reaches out to touch the Moon,
Shuttle engines boom. They soar,
fall and soar again.
Metal butterflies flutter from
Earth to fly past or settle on
her sister worlds.
One - red as wine when seen
shining in the winter sky –
beckons to us louder every year
until -

Today’s frontier – that red light
gleaming in our clear night sky –
is immortalised on quilts as fine
as any sewn by Civil War
widows or snowed-in pioneers.
Some things have changed:
no more dusty rooms, candle-lit,
crammed full of folded fabric;
no more needles sharp or tables
worn and wide.
Today’s quilt-makers’ works
of art are brought to life on PC screens
that flicker green and blue in darkened rooms
and studies all across the world;
Photoshop their flashing needle;
their patches Pancam images, downloaded
overnight by Midnight Browsers
from JPL and NASA sites; their stitches
tiny pixels that make motes of dust
seem big as stones.

With surgeons’ steady hands
they suture ragged edged red Raw
rover images into beautiful mosaics;
Monet-misty landscapes
of undulating dunes soon appear
mysteriously out of what once was
mere grainy noise; shadow-casting outcrops
whisper into view whenever new
Pan- Haz- and Navcam images
bless Exploratorium’s main page.

Horton, Dilo, Nirgal, Nix… six
dozen others too, all consumed
with the need to show and see
Red Mars in new and wondrous ways
– as we would see it if we stood upon
its cinnamon-dusted surface and,
breath catching in our throats,
watch Earth set behind far purple hills
and twin moons dash across the sky…

A century passes.
Men and women bound across the Moon’s
ashen fields, reach out and feel
the Eagle’s fragile skin crinkle
beneath their touch .
Others scurry ant-like over spinning-top
tumbling asteroids: prospectors
staking claims to let them live
like kings back home…

Explorers first, then settlers stalk
the ochre plains of Mars, walk
to and then embrace the two dead rovers
many thought could never die.

And in museums from Chryse to Utopia
martians stare in wonder
at the images the Image Mages
mosaiced together back on Earth,
digital quilts stitched by lovesick souls
before they were even born…
© Stuart Atkinson 2006

[jamescanvin]

Fantastic as always Stu, thanks

[ngunn]

Breaking Views

Humanity has grown new eyes.
They rear on trunks of learning
Steered by sinews of expertise.
They strain into every unknown place
Bearing vicarious habitation,
remote belonging, making the Universe home.

Now this one bright eye stares
On a sudden void, a shock of vanished ground
Under an ochre sky. And through this eye
We millions perceive and wonder,
Sensing and making sense, seeking
All of history in this fine day's vision.

[sranderson]

Hi folks. I have posted a few times, mostly in the Opportunity section. I actually was involved in MER, responsible for the Remote Engineering Unit modules (one on each lander and one on each cruise stage), as well as being systems engineer for the power and pyro driver modules. I managed the REU efforts and worked with two other design engineers and production staff to get the modules designed, built, and tested. I did my own inspection of each board prior to first power-on and again prior to shipment. I'll always remember holding those boards, knowing that they were going to Mars.

I also write a little. Here is something you may enjoy.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

We have come very late.

The smell of age blows across the cracked biscuits of the old seabed,
pushing up burnt-brown echos of lost waves.

The dunes would be sand on another world -- a younger world.
But here, the deep ages have ground the sand to dust,
And the dust has passed to finest powder.

It is just as well.
The wind, thin and cold,
has lost any strength for sand.
Powder alone can it streak and softly pile.

And nothing else has moved forever.

Yes, we are much too late.
The seas waited for us, drying, refilling, and drying many times.
Waited past life, past death, to frozen dry bone dust,
The shrunken sun passing eternally, numbingly, above.

In dim memory, things may have gloried and battled
in these shallow seas; in that warm milky green water.

Were there eyes to watch that scene?
Could there have been thought,
Or even understanding?

And did they ever dream the possibility
Of this dead time,
so far down time's arrow,
so far from life?

All is gone now,
Or perhaps held fast in substrata and darkness.
But I fear that those ancient eyes have become part of the dust-that-blows.

A meteor streaks, falls, and oddly,
Bounces.
A completely new thing.

We see through its eyes:
The dune sea,
the biscuit bed,
hints of water and salt,
Holes blasted deep by the bombardments of antiquity.

In these craters, we seek the old echos
as we wander and dig and grind.

We are disturbing this dead world.
We plan to disturb it further.
Even life, which left long ago,
May yet return.

Or we may squander this last opportunity.
The dust fills our tracks as our spirit wavers.
On Mars, a bet on entropy to win
Is always a sure thing.

Age after age, that soft-blown powder
will dig and scour,
wearing our machines down,
carelessly scattering their atoms
in thin new layers across the seabeds.

Mars understands this well.

It has all the time in the world.

[Stu]

I also write a little. Here is something you may enjoy.

Enjoyed it VERY much, thanks for posting that. Hope you'll write and post some more!

[um3k]

I was rather bored, so I wrote a couple of rather silly "poems:"

See the Mars Rover called Spirit
Travel so slow cannot bear it
Got itself stuck on a hill
Help it I hope someone will

-+|+-

Opportunity called for a rover
Opportunity that rover is called
Opportunity roved to a crater
Opportunity next to crater is small

--

Obviously I'm not much of a poet, but it passed the time.