Poetry for Engineers: A Martian Rover Sends a Postcard Home

Already, I’ve almost forgotten rain;I know I will never know that again.I move forward with the powers you gave meto live up to my name, Curiosity.This is a land without leaves, fronds, or spines.If there are plants, they are small and supine,dust hidden, like light here, filtered and sandsoftened, at home in the thin air, thousandsof motes so small they seem to be fluid,more fog than firmament. Shadows, few andfar from here, I know I must go to themto see if they hold order or mayhemor just another common rock or two.If a machine can miss the Earth, I do.