There is the assertion that the residues
    Found in Mars' meteorites - minerii - were life
    Some four billion years ago.
    The possible traces of life are miniscule disks
    Incrusted on the surface. One wonders barnacles
    Or bigger beings on the crust,
    As Earth life gathers together in vain
    One wonders life like barnacles, then. Washed life
    By the coming and going of the wind tides
    Dry like brandy flowing down the throat: inside life.
    Outside, yet, there was life on Mars, so it is said,
    And life is washed bones on the shore left unattended
    Debris of a slow, psychic calcination that is produced
    In the furnace of emotions.
    Phoenix or raven, Life is reborn from the ashes
    That were, but never from the void, or rather
    Life's to be robbed or bartered like a nugget.

Copyright © Elide V. Oliver, 2000.  All Rights Reserved.