whatever my life was about before poems
it was about planets
and the robots we sent to listen to them
to scent for magnetism or radio waves
to hold out tastebuds for any hint of life
cameras to record what they looked like
and how they changed as we drifted by
there was no touching them
we dared not then
as citizens dare not touch the king
except by permission
we have forgotten those respects
we drive about on Mars
drill where we wish
leave tracks that stake our claim
this is ours now
and when we choose we'll land here
and turn it into a garden
maybe we will
but once I was a part of that eerie exploration
watching what robots learned
in a sense learning with them
we learned more in a quarter-lifetime
than we had in eighteen lifetimes before
and had more questions when we finished
than another lifetime of robots could answer
we danced as well as engineers ever do
and raised our coffee cups to the sky
we made no sacrifices except ourselves
and felt almost the pride of priests
knowing the walk of gods
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