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What If..?

 

 

Last night, standing beneath the stars I wondered

What if we are alone?

What if Mankind is the only mouse in the cathedral,

Our squeaks echoing forlornly from wall to wall, heard by no-one?

What if our beloved martian microbes are just myths?

Comfort blankets we cling to and pull over ourselves

At night because the alternative – that the universe

Is a desert, and ours is the only, almost-fouled water hole -

Is too terrible and terrifying to bear?

 

What if Europa’s fabled oceans are empty,

Their floors quiet and cold,

With no black smokers spewing primordial soup into the slush?

What if Enceladus’ claw-raked Tiger Stripes spray only lifeless ice

Out into space? And Titan’s famous tholin-stained plains

And molasses-gloop methane lakes are sterile too?

 

What if, in all the Milky Way’s great catherine wheel of starry spray,

Ours is the only star orbited by a lush, living world?

What if, as we huddle around our cosmic camp fire,

Endless darkness on all sides, there is no-one watching from the trees?

No-one listening to our frightened “Where are you?”;

No-one to answer our whispered, whimpering “Hello…?”

 

I don’t believe that. Not for a second, not for a heartbeat.

As Ellie said, “What a waste of space that would be..!”

But sometimes, like tonight, standing here,

Staring out from the shore of this sea of distant suns

I can’t help wondering…

What if..?

 

(C) Stuart Atkinson 2013

Seeing PANSTARRS

 

There you are, peeking out from behind

That curtain of cloud, as if afraid to show your face

On the twilight sky’s stage;

Embarrassed by all the attention;

Frightened by the crowds with their clicking cameras

And telescopes, all pointing at you, staring right at you

From the muddy fields, parks and gardens of Earth.

No wonder you just want to hide.

 

You don’t want to be here, do you?

You’d rather be back Out There, in the Oort,

So far from here Sol is just a distant, lonely lantern,

A lighthouse on the horizon with diamond dust

Stars all around. No sound out there;

No-one asking where you are;

No-one sighing “We should be seeing it by now!”

No-one moaning “That’s it? That’s what all the fuss is about?”

 

You didn’t want to come here, did you?

You’d rather have stayed away,

Far, far away, but something pushed

Or pulled you out of place, sent you tumbling solwards,

Left you falling towards the Sun’s foreign fire,

First warming you, then melting you,

Leaving you blushing as you rushed faster and faster

Towards its blinding light.  STEREO watched

Your tails unfurl, tattered banners of gas and dust

Each a million miles long.

So beautiful, so beautiful…

 

But now you hide yourself from our view,

Pulling clouds around your shoulders like a cloak,

Refusing to burst into life as we had hoped.

Instead, a reluctant, shy climb out of the twilight,

In oh-so-slow motion, so dim and pale

Only your most devoted followers have managed

To glimpse your face, leaving the rest to turn away,

Disappointed that you have none of Hale-Bopp’s grace;

And your tail: “Pathetic compared to Hyakutake’s!”

“McNaught’s veil was spread across half the sky!”

They sigh wistfully, “What a waste of time…”

 

But some of us have seen your beauty,

Traced the elegant curve of your tail -

A golden scimitar blade burning

In the lavender hour between sunset

And the fall of true night;

Hanging above the trees and hills,

Your star-like head a faraway firefly

Struggling to shine through the horizon-hugging

Smoke and haze which rises from our villages and towns

At the end of our busy days.

 

Sol’s soldering iron hot gaze is on your back now;

Your first visit to the light-drenched, sunburnt

Inner Worlds is almost at an end.

Is that your laughter I hear?

Carried to my cold-numbed ears

On the western winds as I watch you glowing,

Golden, through a rapidly-closing gap in the cloud…

 

(c) Stuart Atkinson 2013

At Nine

 

 

A few faithful friends have stayed by my side,

Their reassuring hands laid loyally on my back,

But most have forgotten me, abandoned me

To fawn over another considered more beautiful than I.

Younger, taller, with eyes that shoot invisible fire

And a miniature Sun for a heart.

They follow her now, woo her now,

Walk beside her as she slinks, snail-paced,

Over the dry, round pebbled riverbeds of Gale,

Delighting them with her outlandish tales

Of gently-lapping waters and softly falling rain;

Laughing too loudly at anything she says

They’ve left me to stand alone, here

On my lonely island of stone.

If I was bitter, or jealous – which, of course,

A MER robot cannot be – I might feel the need

To remind you all I was “Doing a Science” before she was even born,

Before her army of Curious geeks began gleefully re-Tweeting

The term! For sol after sol I have roved this world;

Crossed its deserts, driven to, round and into

Its dustbowl craters for almost ten Terran years,

So this planet holds no fears for me now,

After so many days of being stalked by sudden death.

But no matter.

I am a martian now.

This is my home, this is where I live,

Where I wake and sleep, where I creep on creaking wheels

Around the Time-worn rim of great Endeavour,

Sol after sol after sol,

Each sunrise a delightful “I’m still alive!” surprise;

Each glacial lavender sunset met with a whispered

“Please let me wake again, there’s so much more

For me to do here yet…” prayer…

I am a martian now.

Earth is just a memory, a ghostly wraith.

It calls out to me as I stand bathed

In the dusty half-light of every dusk and dawn,

A sapphire spark embedded in the grey.

My very own Cathy, moaning “How could you leave me?”

As I look down from Cape York’s

Slowly weathering heights,

Watching dust devils waltzing far below,

Following barely-there Mares Tails of cloud

Drifting through the honey-hued sky,

Feeling the breeze rolling over, around and through me.

I shiver as her phantom breath, blowing across

That Timeless Gulf of Space, chills my face,

Stinging my eyes as I gaze lovingly at Mars.

These are my brooding, Bronte moors,

My fields of gold. Covered not

With softly swaying grass

But billions of broken stones.

No wind-whipped trees here,

The ancient breeze carries only the sound

Of boulders being ground to sand

One millimetre every million years…

And yet…

I grow weary of this place. I itch to race

Away from these Stegosaur spine blades of stone

And roam onwards, onwards,

South, to where Tribulation’s lofty peak

Calls out like a mermaid, beckoning me.

Up there is where I should be,

Looking down on where I am now,

Where I have been for so long,

Snuffling about for traces of clays

Around these pale and pasty plates…

I am a martian now.

Brother to Bradbury’s sandships;

Sister to Kim Stanley Robinson’s stone-clad

Issei-smuggling rovers;

Kin to HG’s “Ulla!” singing tripods.

I am a Barsoomian sculpture,

Its dust coats and covers every part of me,

Has penetrated deep down to the very heart of me.

There is not a nut or bolt of me

Free from the touch of this planet’s powdered rust.

I am a martian now.

© Stuart Atkinson 2013

Waiting For ISON

 

 

 

There you are – a faint, fuzzy star

Camouflaged by the crushed diamond dust

Sprinkled between Castor and Pollux.

Not much to look at now, it’s true,

But before year’s end, you promise us,

You will blossom and bloom, unfurling

Your Camelot banner tail across our frosty

Northern skies as you whip around the Sun…

 

 

 

Please don’t let us down.

We’ve waited for you for so long;

Dreamed so many dreams of you;

Wished on so many shooting stars for you;

Imagined you lighting up our sky since childhood;

Sighed for oh so many years at the sight

Of paintings showing those that came before you

Burning bright on nineteenth century nights,

Their searchlight tails sprayed across the heavens,

Princes and peasants alike staring up at you

With wide-with-wonder eyes,

Unable to believe what they were seeing,

Some no doubt screaming “Begone! Flee!

Leave us be!”

 

 

 

Others like you have promised us the world,

Reached out from across the Great Black

To fill our hungry hearts with hope,

Only to leave us standing in the dark alone,

Glaring at another empty sky,

Shaking our fists at the universe for lying

To us again, playing us for fools again,

Shattering our dreams and making us feel

Stupid again…

 

 

 

Oh please, don’t be lying to us,

Don’t leave us standing at astronomy’s altar in tears.

We want to gather on our school playing fields,

Hilltops and harbour-sides, watching you rise

In glory from behind bare-limbed trees.

We want to park our cars in crowded lay-bys and stand

With strangers, marvelling at the sight of you

Stretched across the purple-hued twilight

Like God’s own Maglite beam.

We want to hear people standing in line

At bus-stops and post offices describing

How they saw it walking home, or walking the dog,

Or weaving their way back from the pub,

“And it was beautiful…”

We want to walk along the shore, hand in hand,

To stand at the waves’ foaming edge and whisper

“Look at that…!” as your tail paints

A mother of pearl rainbow across the sky.

We want to walk out into our gardens at dawn,

In our Christmas slippers and cat hair matted dressing gowns

And see you shining above our sheds,

Long tail stretched above our heads, feeling small,

Banishing The Ghost of Kohoutek Past

Once and for all…

 

 

 

So please, don’t let us down, oh please

Don’t let us down. Not again.

Don’t make future generations snarl

As they say your name; don’t make us hate you

When you’ve gone, cursing bitter memories of you.

Put on a celestial circus show for us!

Thrill us as you fly around our star,

Make us want to weep at your beauty as you leap

Over Sol’s flickering flames to hang above

Our cities and towns, briefly looking down

On our warring, weary world like an angel

Before flying away again, leaving us behind,

Leaving us with a thousand Facebook photographs

And a trillion breathless Tweets to remember you by…

 

 

 

© Stuart Atkinson 2013

 

 

Endeavour comes Home

 

 

I must admit, sitting at my PC’s dusty screen

I followed Endeavour’s final journey

With mixed feelings, opposing voices

Whispering in my ears as she was steered

Slowly through LA’s crazy maze

Of  Sun-bleached roads and streets,

Wings passing over the sawdust-haloed stumps

Of once-great trees,

Watched by crowds of starry-eyed Angelenos

And Moon-faced space enthusiasts

In their favourite, faded NASA tees

And KSC-bought astronaut shades.

 

 

Part of me marvelled at the bizarre sight,

Delighted to see the famous spacecraft

Welcomed to her final resting place

With such fanfare. What a relief there’d be

No shameful end of days for her;

No Buran abandonment, no exile in a pauper’s grave

Of dust and rust, but a gloriously-lit

Throne room of her own, worshipped

From all sides, lights reflecting off her

Windows, tiles and tyres as lines

Of acolytes – desperate to see a real

Spaceship celebrity – file past,

IPhone cameras flashing, shaking their heads

In disbelief as they finally see

Just how big she was, how beautifully

Her wings swept back, how black

Her Apollo capsule-sized engines were…

Remembering how they’d watched her

Rise from pad into the poster paint blue

Sky, climbing twin pillars of roaring

Dragonfyre to soar among the stars,

Ignoring the pleading of gravity

To sing “Look at me, I’m free, free..!”

 

 

…but, whispering in my other ear another voice,

Sad, aggrieved, unable to believe

How, after years of condemning her as

“Death with Wings”, of writing and saying terrible things

About her and the cost of her flights

Fawning crowds now fall at her feet,

Furiously Tweeting declarations of undying love

For her as she passes the end of their street,

Crying out “We miss you!” as she rolls

In slow motion around the corner

And finally slides out of sight…

 

 

And in the back of my mind now a third voice,

Less kind, angry at the sight of her being dragged

Through the city like some captured, exotic beast,

Paraded for the baying crowds like Kong,

Pulled along by invisible chains, a snow white meteorite

Banished from the sky and sentenced to exile on Earth;

Not “A Heroine Come Home” at all,

But an engineered angel fallen from heaven

And thrown into an air-conditioned, floodlit cell,

Surely a spacecraft’s idea of Hell

After a lifetime of bathing in starlight,

Of feeling the icy kiss of Earthlight

On her bare shoulder as she rolled, pitched

And yawed above the bored, envious Earth…

 

 

One day I’ll cross the ocean to see her myself;

Pad pilgrim-softly through the Museum’s

Corridors and halls to stand before her and,

At least in my mind, fall to my knees.

Then those voices will whisper in my ears again,

Unheard by anyone else standing there

Clutching their cameras and bulging gift shop bags.

One will say “Thank you, for all that you were,”

The other will say “I’m sorry…”

 

© Stuart Atkinson 2012

The Watching Hills

 

When people eventually reach this place,

Scanning the landscape through visors etched

And scratched by Gale’s windblown grit, it’s not

The gentle hump of Mt Sharp that will call to them,

Not the mesas and buttes of Aeolis Mons foothills

That will make them shake their heads in disbelief,

But what they see on the far horizon.

Past the miles of countless stones;

Past Glenelg’s pale, powdery pits

To where the sky and the ground kiss;

Where mist dulls and dims the great crater’s epic rim;

Where Heaven-high hills painted purple and violet

By the violent twilight, piled upon each other,

Peer over each other’s shoulder to see

The strange creatures that fell from the stars;

Where a stately procession of peaks fades away

To a faraway skyline.

 

 

Dry now – dusty, cold;

Museum exhibit mountains already old

When Everest and her Himalayan brood

Were being born.

Rivers once ran through them; icy water cascaded

Over their crimson cliffs to vomit sediment

And silt across the crater floor

In a fan of fines and stones.

The debris of those floods lies all around:

When Curiosity looks down she sees water-rounded

Pebbles embedded in the broken paving stone ground,

The fossilised remains of a giddy geological game

Played by rushing water and stubborn rocks.

 

 

If you’d stood here a billion years ago,

Perhaps two, waves would have lapped gently

Around your feet – maybe higher,

Maybe rolled in slow martian motion past your knees,

And looking down you’d have seen stream-

Polished stones swimming past your boots,

Tumbling over and over and over…

 

 

-         all gone now: a dry, dead riverbed all that’s left

For a nuclear-powered rover to find millennia later

In a blaring fanfare of scientific glee, her Team

Grinning from a starkly-lit stage as they announce

Their findings to the world, wondering, behind their grins,

How the hell they can get images back from an alien

World halfway across Sol’s system but reporters

Attempting to phone in questions would be better served

By smoke signals, or ouija boards,

Or pigeons with hastily-scrawled

Notes strapped to their scrawny legs.

 

 

Yes, future travellers and tourists will love those hills,

Caress their cliffs and ridges with tired sightseer eyes.

Then, bathed in morning’s marmalade light climb, climb,

Trekking up valleys and canyons, winding past ridges

And outcrops before standing in triumph on their summits,

Mountain-conquering, arms-outstretched

Winsletts and DiCaprios, Kings (and Queens)

Of the New World –

 

 

But for now all we have are photographs,

Pixelated portraits taken by a slowly roaming robot,

And sadly our oh-so Curious rover

Will never be closer to the Watching Hills

Than she is right now.

So enjoy this view, drink it in,

Roll it around your mind like a fine martian wine

And envy those who, in years to come,

Will walk in Curiosity’s tracks,

Whispering to their partners “Look at that…”

 

 

© Stuart Atkinson 2012

At Bradbury Landing

 

In years to come, pilgrims from every

Crowded corner of Sol’s system will journey

To this pale and dusty place.

From the rain-soaked fields of Earth

And Titan’s poisonous frozen plains;

From Europa’s cross-hatched canyons,

Mercury’s melting mountains

And Luna’s ash-grey mare they’ll come,

Their hands and faces stained

With the dirt of a dozen different worlds,

To stand at “Bradbury Landing”.

Here, where a rover – a century before

It was displayed in the Great Museum Of Mars –

Turned its mighty oil drum wheels for the first time,

Leaving behind tracks in the fines

That the wind swiftly blew away,

They’ll stand in silence, listening to the hissing

Of their helmet-heated air, staring in disbelief

At the summit of Mt Sharp, drenched in molten gold

Aeolian Glow by the rays of the setting Sun,

And whisper “Thank you” to the man

Who took Mankind to Mars.

At first, a simple ceremony:

Standing on the paprika and cinnamon sands,

As Martian tradition demands

Each will hold in his or her shaking hands

A copy of a book, The Book, His book,

Each one a gift from one of Terra’s sister worlds.

Not to lay on the ground in tribute,

Not to offer as space age Gold, Frankincense or Myrhh,

But to exchange with fellow travellers,

Each handover continuing the journey Bradbury began

When he first sat down and started to write his

Beloved Chronicles.

In the following years, the Landing will no

Doubt grow busier, attracting more and more

Skin-suited history and sci-fi junkies from far and wide,

Each standing there, wide-eyed, in front

Of the upturned goldfish bowl dome

That protects the rover’s chevron tracks.

Not the originals, of course – those will be long gone -

But faithful reproductions, lovingly sculpted

Out of the rocks and dirt and stone

By Mars Heritage volunteers desperate to honour both

Man and machine, recreating

The path of that first historic drive,

That martian Kitty Hawk first flight

When Curiosity began to rove and the New World

Opened up before us.

Later still, when snow-globe oases of green

And blue are starting to bloom on Mars,

Bradbury’s followers will climb Aeolis Mons

To stand on its star-scratching summit to see

The Book brought vividly to life.

Some will take the easy route: Walk 1,

The one that follows Curiosity’s own path

Towards and then across the moat of dunes,

Up to and through the foothills, twin moons

Shining down on them as they wend their way

Between the crumbling, rock-tumbling mesas

And buttes before heading up to where

The fork-dragged-through-mashed-potato

“Light Toned Unit” finally surrenders a view

Of the Real Peak. Others will seek

A bolder route. Walk 2; an ankle-twisting trek

Up older canyons, clambering over striped ochre outcrops

Until finally the peak rears up ahead.

Then all will slog their way up to the top,

To stand on the summit of Mt Sharp and gaze

Down at Gale, stretched out before them like

A pioneer’s quilt wonderland of ancient, epic stone.

And standing there they’ll see the most moving scenes

Of The Book brought vividly to life.

Plugged into MarsNet’s virtual reality

They’ll gaze up into the butterscotch sky and find

It full of Fifties-styled sleek-ringed rockets,

Silver locusts dropping to the ground for miles

And miles around, each one bringing another crowd

Of settlers from the next world in.

Over there – an American mid-West town,

Perfect in every way, white picket fences shining

Like bones, manicured lawns and parks glowing

Emerald green in the sunlight, impossible, but there –

-         and over there, shivering, cold in the shadow

Of Mt Sharp, the remains of a martian city.

Once elegant, with temples, halls and homes so starkly

Beautiful they made the dark martians weep with pride, its ruins

Would now make them hide their golden eyes behind their hands.

Time has left nothing standing taller than a tree.

The stumps of snow-white pillars jut from the ground

Like broken teeth; the canal that curled its way

Through the city’s jewelled heart, carrying cool, clear water

From the pole is bone dry now, an artery clogged with dust –

-         and over there, on the amber-hued plain that laps up against

The crater’s southern wall, a dozen martian sandships in a line,

Cobweb-fine sails billowing in the whispering wind,

Shining a hundred shades of sapphire, silver and gold

As they flow across the sands like wine,

Before vanishing like ghosts…

Back on the gritty floor of Gale,

One more thing to see, one last thing

For a Pilgrim to do before they can return home

To their outback hab or pressurised dome.

Out there, halfway between the crater’s

Arrakeen Shield Wall and the rock falls

At the once Bayer-camouflaged base of the Promised Land –

A narrow strip of shouldn’t-be-there blue,

A slashed sapphire wound in the rust-hued landscape

That, once glimpsed, pulls you relentlessly towards it

Like a siren; an event horizon of beauty

From which there can be no escape…

Bounding to it brings a reality-lurching surprise.

Suddenly you’re standing on the side of a canal,

An honest to God martian canal

Cut out of the ground, filled, impossibly,

With water, that slops and slaps sleepily against the sides.

A simple, hand-written sign stands beside it

Bearing the words: “Look in to see a martian…”

And as you do, leaning carefully over the edge,

You already know what you will see –

Your own reflection staring back at you.

© Stuart Atkinson 2012