429-JournalistsReport

A Poem from Mars

04/29/2014

Christopher Cokinos

Field Notes : Repair

--at the Mars Desert Research Station, Crew 141, southern Utah

...the rocks are ringing, the rocks are ringing the mountains.

--from a southern Paiute song

His robot spider

clicks its black toes

against the metal floor

of the Engineering Bay.

He puzzles circuits, the tool gleams.

Nothing is perfectly plumb.

We shim the gaps with plans

and bits of song.

A logbook : "problem resolved."

Rocks here surged in river

channels then rested

for a long time. Not so

long. Sunlight finds them.

We do too. There's a road not far from here.

We go, scooting another

lens to sandstone,

blossoming a spectrograph,

figuring the traverse

needs, next time, this other route.

This is practice.

This might just be.

It is

the balky wheel that

we make turn, the auger,

a better spear, a linebreak

marked with arrows, a chord

that fills the Hab

during sun salutation.

The heart rate's variable,

like it's supposed to be,

and Jurassic dunes that ring

our sim are themselves

indifferent. Look,

a lot of things have gone wrong.

We admit that.

Out there, we're speaking in mime,

refining gestures to explain

the state we're in.

The spider taps its feet

only when we tell it.

But we know the circuit's bigger.

The hand on the helmet means I'm Okay.

The hand at the throat means No More.

The arms waving mean Come Here.

The hand passing before the visor means I Can't See.

The hand on the helmet means I'm Okay.

--Christopher Cokinos, Crew Journalist