From the dawn of history, man has
looked to the sky with wonder at this unblinking
red star which has been central to our mythology
and imagination from before Roman times to
the canals first viewed through Schiaparelli’s
telescope in the music of Holst’ s Planets, and
the wonder of Burroughs and Wells’ tales
To date, we’ve thrown some forty-eight
chunks of metal at this planet, with
varying degrees of success, searching
for answers to fundamental questions.
What happened to Mars’s atmosphere,
does water lie frozen under those ragged
craters at the planet’s poles and was there
or is there still life on Mars?
Categories:
holst, life,
Form: Free verse