[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

[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