A poem for Mars

Poem called “Mars” read by the Dutch author Marjolijn van Heemstra. She defines herself as a writer who makes theatre, and whose vocation is to ask questions and share answers.

Full transcription of the poem:

Mars

We're here.

Centuries of reaching out

and now we can take snapshots of your dust,

and the furrows we once

thought were canals.

Metal hands scoop your soil,

searching for codes in your wastelands,

ancient possibilities

in that language of rust.

Our journey was fuelled by kerosene,

by myth, by longing for the sky,

by yearning for kin

in this frigid darkness,

blood ties made of cosmic grit.

We know how but not why

we revolve around this sun together,

we split atoms without knowing why

we won’t split ourselves,

cell by cell, at breakneck speed

from a speck full of urgency

became this being.

Your body carries family secrets,

traces of Earth’s infancy,

deepest memories of our nature.

You are the answer to a question

our species hardly understands:

how to learn from a neighbour.

More about Marjolijn van Heemstra (in Dutch): https://www.marjolijnvanheemstra.nl/

Poem translated by Michele Hutchison.

Credits:

• Filming and editing: ESA – M. Cowan.

• Video footage:

  • Mars Express data and animations: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/NASA/MSSS (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)

  • ExoMars Rosalind Franklin mission animation: ESA/Mlabspace

• Music: “Mars 4”, by Nick Ingman and Terry Devine-King (PRS)