Mars

Unblinking, there among night's stellar curtain
An umber speck resides, but I'm not certain.
Beyond it, indigo peppered in orbits
Spin astroids great and small and sometimes comets.

A puzzle none can solve nor piece together.
Were they once someone's lands and seas and weather?
Were dinosaurs, which vanished from our mother
Caught in the starry rain that crushed the other.

Could Umber speck have once held life, I know not,
Did mountains from the gods rain on it, white hot.
Giant slag-heap craters mar once fertile landscape.
Explode the crust and all things there in sand drape.

The crisscross lines; were they once flowing rivers
Across fair hills and plains; fresh sweet life givers?
Bright shining poles; it's ice, or frozen gases.
Were they once gentle rain in alpine passes?

Her fate, unknown, but in my thoughts recurring
She sleeps; and in her bosom life is stirring.
One day I wish to walk among the bright stars
And maybe, go to see our sister; red Mars.