The car paused, idling, at the end of the drive.
What was going on in the head of the shadow
Inside? Another shadow watched the scene
From across the grey street, behind a window
With half-drawn blinds. What was going on
In the head of the other shadow inside? Imagine
A panoramic vista, tinted almost to match
The umber-ochre coloring of a blood moon.
A roughly level expanse of gravelly rubble
Extends to a pink horizon, side to side. You
Can can just make out the shadow of the rover
That has trundled to this overlook after years,
Local, Martian years, of trying and surveying.
That vehicle was sent to that landscape
From a blue-green dot of light in the night sky.
It has been transmitting to the home world
All this time, an invader and an emissary
And a thing that is neither one light nor
The other, a message between the worlds,
But not a melding of their insides. That’s what
The shadow in the house was thinking about
While watching the mysterious fellow shadow
In the black car now easing out of the drive.
That, and the fact snow was forecast tonight.
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