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)