There it is. A frosting of fairy dust
covering the rust-red rocks
with a shimmering quilt of blue;
Tinkling and twinkling in the martian twilight,
like a billion tiny fireflies have settled
on the frozen ground… But Phoenix hears
no sound of fluttering wings, no cicadas singing
at the sky, just the dry-bone snap of ancient stones
cracking like thin ice in the migraine light
of another marmalade dawn…
Staring at our screens, seeing the hoarfrost gleaming
we smiled, thinking how the landing site
would soon be Wenceslass White, an icy
martian Narnia shining with a million diamonds’ light.
But Phoenix, staring at the same, frost-flecked plain
felt just the pain that comes with knowing death is near
and creeping closer; a rising tide of lethal cold
that will first lap at her feet then climb to coat
her shivering body in a deadly rime,
bringing to an end her too-brief life on Mars…
© Stuart Atkinson August 2008
Astropoetry 