One thousand sunsets have I seen,
One thousand blue dawns too;
One thousand nights of knife-sharp cold
Have I endured to send you images
Of Barsoom’s beautiful burgundy peaks,
Its rubble, rocks and stones,
All scoured by dust, once under cool water
But now dry as fire-flensed bones.
One thousand times pale sol has traced
Her arc above my head;
But no ball of fire shines in these eyes, instead
A wan and wasted disc,
A coin of faded gold, the brutal cold
Of Mars that chills me to my core
Too deep for Sol’s meagre heat to ever hope to thaw,
And so I wake from sleep each dawn to find
A fine-stitched cloak of hoarfrost covers me.
One thousand purple velvet dusks
Have left me close to tears;
Fearful, not for my own frail self
But for your world, my dearest
Makers: the sapphire-splinter beacon I see
Blazing as a star before I sleep seems
So small from here; its ink-blue oceans,
Forests, fields and streams reduced
To a twinkling Tinkerbell gleam,
A spark of laughter, life and love
That could grow roaring into a galaxy-devouring
forest fire in Far Far Future years to come
Or be snuffed out in an instant, smoke curling
From its seared remains the only sign
That Man Was Here leaving me standing alone,
Staring at where the Evening Star used to be.
Ten times longer have I lived than I
Was meant to do; oh, I am so tired now,
Cold and old, with worn wheels weary
From turning and sleep-starved eyes burning
With the grit that dust devils spit into them whenever they spin by.
But I shall not die, not yet, not yet,
There is much more for these fading eyes to see.
All I ask is this go stand under the stars tonight,
Look up, and think of me
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Tributes to Mars Rovers (read the next / previous)
Stuart Atkinson, October 26, 2006
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