Cindy Botha

Raking lEAVES oN mARS

I close one eye    
still see two moons
fear and panic     the misshapen twins
of this rusty morning
close both eyes and try to imagine 

an inland sea, but how long does it take
to terraform a planet?
the wind’s an eggbeater
no use seeding this spindly atmosphere
it might be months

before the red dust settles
I start with fallen leaves crunching
in old riverbeds
lose myself in the rhythm of the rake
chitchat of crumbly drifts

all day the sky burns in autumn shades
then the sunset     forty minutes late
turns cool grey-blue
this atmosphere’s thin, I admit
it scatters light in unfamiliar ways

but I’m careful     I know what’s what
I tread more softly here
only thirty-eight percent of me
shows up in my footprints
no wonder I’m     lightheaded

thirsty as a sapless twig
in all this flame and gold and madder
there’s no real     autumn
no fallen leaves to rake
no rake

Cindy Botha was born and raised in Africa and now lives in New Zealand. She began writing while caring for her mother, a dementia sufferer. Her poems appear in magazines and anthologies in NZ, Australia, the UK and USA.

Cindy wrote this about her poem:

I love the challenge of stirring a bit of science into poetry. It’s easy to fall into interpretation or explanation, so mixing in facts without an ‘information dump’ requires faith in the reader as much as in myself. This one ended up with a touch of sci-fi – which is ok too.