{"id":640,"date":"2009-08-28T20:19:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-28T20:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/2009\/08\/28\/640\/"},"modified":"2016-10-31T13:29:06","modified_gmt":"2016-10-31T13:29:06","slug":"640","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/2009\/08\/28\/640\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

“Strange to think a single rose-pink snowflake”<\/p>\n

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To make Mars a living place, a real place, a part of our world with meaning — the poetry of Stuart Atkinson will guide you. Heartfelt and informed, his poetry touches our human mind and soul.<\/div>\n
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If you are an artist searching new visions, let the words of an astronomer dedicated to educating the public about Mars speak to you, teach you, and share their wisdom. “It\u2019s not science that will get the public to support a manned mission to Mars,” argues Atkinson, “It\u2019s all about life.”<\/div>\n
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To bring a supposedly foreign place so close, to make it so real, approachable, and full of hope; not something to be feared but met with in wonderment, in celebration, is the work of a Mars Artist. Mars can become as familiar as the mysteries we face every day on Earth — this is a poet’s gift. This is Art in its most important, vital, human form. This is the role of Mars Artists. Our minds need passionately to eat of Stuart Atkinson’s “cinnamon-dusted crust.”<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
“I watched the Augustine meeting on NASA TV and there was pretty little passion there when you consider we’re essentially talking about nothing less than mapping out the future of mankind’s expansion out into space.”<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Hundreds of years from now humans living on Mars will wonder what we thought of their home.<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
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They will read the poems of Stuart Atkinson.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Look Out Below\u2026<\/i><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/i><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Strange to think a single rose-pink snowflake<\/div>\n
floating from the frigid polar sky could have been<\/div>\n
the start. Settling on the silent ice as softly as a sigh,<\/div>\n
pressing on the white-capped scarp just hard<\/div>\n
enough to send a tickle of a tremor<\/div>\n
through its gateau-like layers of rock<\/div>\n
it shocked the sleeping stones awake,<\/div>\n
setting them shivering and quivering just enough<\/div>\n
to shake loose a crust of ochre-dusted snow<\/div>\n
and send it tumbling to the world below,<\/div>\n
blossoming into powder puffs as it scuffed<\/div>\n
each ledge and boulder on the way,<\/div>\n
spraying veils of flour-fine ice into the<\/div>\n
vacuum-thin air before crumping<\/div>\n
into the polar plain and billowing away<\/div>\n
from the high cliff\u2019s crumbling base\u2026<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Imagine walking in the Great Wall shadow<\/div>\n
of that scarp; delighting in the flint-sharp polar light,<\/div>\n
rejoicing in the silence, relishing the peace<\/div>\n
when suddenly the ground beneath your feet<\/div>\n
begins to quake, and looking up<\/div>\n
you see snow flaking off the cliff. Soon rocks and grit<\/div>\n
a thousand shades of pink and red<\/div>\n
are falling from the sky \u2013 a dry waterfall<\/div>\n
of icing sugar frost and pollen-fine dust,<\/div>\n
rushing through the air to strike the ground<\/div>\n
without a sound in a martian mare\u2019s tail cloud<\/div>\n
of tan and titian fines that huffs and puffs<\/div>\n
towards you, a slow-motion Barsoomian tsunami<\/div>\n
as weak as the beating of a faerie\u2019s wing\u2026<\/div>\n
Such sights our eyes will never see,<\/div>\n
and I cannot help but envy those who, in the future, do.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\u00a9 Stuart Atkinson 2008<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Fall further in love with Mars here:<\/div>\n
http:\/\/astropoetry.wordpress.com\/<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Strange to think a single rose-pink snowflake” To make Mars a living place, a real place, a part of our world with meaning — the poetry of Stuart Atkinson will guide you. Heartfelt and informed, his poetry touches our human mind and soul. If you are an artist searching new visions, let the words of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74,57,137],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction-writing","category-poetry","category-stuart-atkinson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5609,"href":"https:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640\/revisions\/5609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}