writing poetry on mars
oh, mom, it is so beautiful
--steve carey 

i'm a fan of science podcasts particularly star talk hosted by astrophysicist/science educator neil de grasse tyson.  i listen to podcasts as i do my weekly chores.  & this week's episode is about the planned manned mars missions expected to occur in the mid 2030s.  haven't heard about it?  well, it doesn't get a lot of media attention considering that we have someone in the oval office that sucks a lot of oxygen from the room.

these missions will be joint private & government operations.  as the old 1970s action/sci fi TV show, the six million dollar man, said about the bionic man, we can do it; we have the technology.  the matter is money, focus & political will.  there will be stages in our journey to mars.  first there is artemis moon project slated to lift off in 2024.  haven't heard about this too?  damn!  artemis' goal is to establish a base on the moon where we can begin building the crafts to first supply then send humans to mars.

there are a great many hurdles to overcome before we get there.  even artemis can be derailed tho i suspect that it will indeed lift-off earth in a few years.  we are not going to mars to colonize it.  we are going to mars to give human kind a mission that can bind us together.  mars will be an international action.  one nation cannot do it alone.  plus, the study of mars will expand our knowledge of our own place in the cosmos & find if life [i suspect that there is evidence of fossilized living organisms on mars] exists outside of our earth.

now, i am no booster but i am interested in the cosmos & our place in it.  the universe, hell, our solar system, is vaster, more beautiful & stranger than we can possibly imagine.  to know more about the cosmos is to know deeper ourselves.  looking at the stars in the night sky is humbling because we are staring back in time to ancient light that has traveled unimaginable distances.  i think perhaps a shared first few steps off our planet can unite & inspire human kind.  i don't preach the end of injustice & conflict.  as the great poet rene char wrote, the poet bursts the bonds of what he touches.  he doesn't teach the end of bonds.  & if you want a present day example of international cooperation then look up into the sky right now.  flying over us is the international space station where a medley of astronauts, cosmonauts, taikonauts et al. are living, working & playing together in peace.  indeed, u.s. astronauts rely on the russian space federation to get to & from the ISS because we scuttled our own shuttle program a few years ago.  so human kind can & does cooperate, live, work & play in peace.  if it wants too.

poets have been looking at the stars forever.  i wondered what kind of poems would be written on mars.  i don't mean writing an ostranenie whereby the poet makes strange the ordinary details of our present day like the british poet craig raine did when he founded the martian school in the 1970s.  how can our present civilization be made more strange than it is already.  everyday i see something or read something that makes me feel like i've just walked in a sci fi movie.  the world is weird enough to just record it as it is.

so making strange is not what i am thinking about.  rather, the task of the poet is to observe & report.  what would a poet on mars observe & report on?  because if we are to survive our present madness [i am doubtful that we can] we will need art to help us think & see as well as we shall need math & science to make it all work.  as one scientist on the star talk podcast said, we need STEAM [science, technology, engineering, art & math] to get to mars.  hell we need these things just to get thru our daily commute.

would i want to be a poet on mars?  would you?  & what would you think about as you sat at your desk in your quarters on mars & stared outside your own window at its mountains, valley, clouds etc etc.  imagine that as you bring language into being.  imagine that you can hear the martian winds blowing against your habitat.  you can do that right fucking now.  our technology is so precise that NASA recorded the sound of a martian wind.  for i think, to quote a line by seamus heaney, the end of art is peace.  perhaps a collective international mission to mars might break us out of our petty meanness toward each other.  perhaps going to mars will give us a fresh perspective on the beauty & fragility of earth so that we may take better care of our home & thus ourselves & all living things on her.  perhaps writing poetry on mars will expand & deepen the ever possible needs & desires of the human heart which might extend to all things living for we might discover again & again how fragile & fortunate our being here on this fucking beautiful planet.  for we do have the eyes, ears, mind & ability to look up into the sky & count our lucky stars.