Easy Writer had an announcement on her blog that was two-fold.  It was her birthday but she seemed more excited about the news that caves have been found on Mars.  Scientists have long anticipated finding caves on Mars, lava tubes formed by volcanoes, in which they might set up future human outposts on the red planet.  EasyWriter asked for poems for her birthday and so I wrote this one, contemplating the possibilities.  I hope she won't mind if I post it here as well - after all, a post is a post.

Artifacts

Deep within ochre walls,
A chasm of darkness.
Until that same light
That rouses sleeping Earth,
Slides neatly
Through ancient doorways,
Grazes the icy blanket
That once cooled forgotten fires
Where molten rivers flowed.

This is no Lascaux.
No artist lived to scrawl
His existence into the walls
of this desolate womb.
No figures play or die
across the surface of this hollow.
No scribe of antiquity
bequeathed sagacious scrolls.

In this cavernous outpost
Deep within foreign walls,
These new primitives are
Roused by the light as it
Slips into ancient cavities.
Their machines hum and whisper,
Their language a strange music
That echoes in the emptiness.
Their artifacts will wait,
For explorers yet distant.