HAIKU

by Joan Leotta

Joan Leotta is an author and Story Performer.

CRACKING THE CODE

by Dick Westheimer

This annotated image was taken by a parachute-up-look camera aboard the protective back shell of NASA's Perseverance rover during its descent toward Mars' Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021. Using binary code, two messages have been encoded in the neutral white and international-orange parachute gores (the sections that make up the canopy's hemispherical shape). The inner portion spells out "DARE MIGHTY THINGS," with each word located on its own ring of gores. The outer band of the canopy provides GPS coordinates for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where the rover was built and the project is managed. —NASA, February 25, 2021


Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. —Theodore Roosevelt, “The Strenuous Life," April 10, 1899

The drogue deployed in a blue black sky
pulled nine Gs as it slowed the rover’s descent 
a rosette of white and red, it opened wide—
revealed to an observant few, a code

that drove the NASA team, words that T.R. wrote
of a strenuous life, of toil and hardship
of failure and strife: these are not a footnote
but the stuff of creation, of life’s drift

from the gray twilight to glorious triumphs.
There is no “easy peace,” just all the mighty things
from day to day, from here to enough
of how we end and how we begin, like

dying well
washing the dead
tending the sick
writing the one poem
writing the other
giving birth
being born
sitting silently, leaned against a tree
sitting silently 
listening
hearing
passing by a panhandler
sitting by a panhandler
depressed, getting up in the morning 
sleep deprived, suckling a baby
wiping shit from the butt of an aged parent
knowing from the taste of soil if it’s sweet
forgiving a friend
learning birdsongs.


Dick Westheimer writes poetry to makes sense of the world—which is made easier by the company of his wife of 40 years, and the plot of land they’ve worked together for all of those years. His poems have appeared in Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, For a Better World, and Riparian.

SOME DAY, PERHAPS...

IT WILL HELP TO REMEMBER THESE TROUBLES AS WELL.*

by Bonnie Naradzay

*Aeneas to his men, after theirs is the only ship

  to survive a violent storm at sea near Carthage.

         

Friends, a study of The Black Death states the plague 

may have come from outer space. The Mars Rover 

landed in a dried up lake. Perseverance is transporting 

images home from the red planet. On earth, we learn 

that magnetic north and south may be flipping sides, 

an ominous event, according to weakening attractions 

and ancient iron shards stuck pointing the wrong way. 

In Galveston, medical workers asked for a refrigerated 

truck to store the dead bodies. Thousands of turtles 

stunned by the cold have gone to a convention center 

in the backs of station wagons. Ted Cruz got on the plane

in jeans but went the wrong way, or the optics were wrong.

Sweet Thames, and Virgil, flow gently while I end my song.

Bonnie Naradzay leads poetry workshops at a day shelter for homeless people and at a retirement center, both in Washington DC.  Recent poems are in AGNI, New Letters (Pushcart nomination), Kenyon Review Online, RHINO, Tar River Poetry, Tampa Review, Poet Lore, EPOCH, Northern Virginia Review, Anglican Theological Review, Seminary Ridge Review, and The Ekphrastic Review.

WHAT IS HERE

by Mary K O'Melveny

Perseverance

has landed today

on Mars.

Curiosity will have company.

Everyone is eager for news:

Red cinnamon rocks.

Long dead grey lakes.

Dust filled grooves.

Caves chiseled into canyons

like a Henry Moore garden.

Layers of mystery

embedded in swirls of rock

marbled as a fine steak.

We are always looking

for something

to make sense of.

Something that explains

our odd and quirky selves,

the reasons we love and lose,

fight over nothing sensible,

torture and torment.

We are always looking

for history,

for memory,

for stories,

for permanence,

for renewal.

The deeper we dig,

the less happy we are.

So we fly off

to other realms

hoping to learn more

from long dead planets.

Hoping there is something

new under the sun.

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.