day by day
drill down and
sift, sort, filter.
day by day collect.

don’t fear.

don’t wonder
if a day unlike this day will come, or
if all days are one day.

little rover,
show us your spirit.

show us your confident
all-wheel drive.
take us up the shadowed banks
of long-dead oceans,
across the barren slake
of million-year craters.

beyond our weighty borders,
let us borrow your eyes.

show us the keepsake rocks
you’ve hidden in your rock lab.
show us the sand you’ll eat.

show us tracks tracing
an ageless desert.
show us cold remnants of life
deep in your iron belly.

be lonely.

let your eyes close
softly, as the dark comes—
but raise your thoughts:

you’ll never fly home
across the night, past
all those stars

but
we are up here listening
for you.