Bearded Squirrel

Bearded Squirrel

(from Prosthetic Amalgams)

by

Kenny A. Chaffin

All Rights Reserved © 2014 Kenny A. Chaffin

            Seven years from now a bearded squirrel looking like Rasputin glares at me from atop a fence post along the canal. Yes, the same canal I walk along now. He scolds me saying, ‘Why are you here? What have you done, it’s been seven years?’ I just look at him and shake my head because I too can see the past and say, ‘You think it’s easy? You up on your high post from your future vantage point?’ I spit on the grass in front of the post to make my point. I know as well as him what the future holds and am content with it, for I will have looked back on it that seven years ago and I tell him, ‘The world will know of you!’ I turn and walk into the future.

With the news of Opportunity completing a marathon on Mars I thought it a good time to post this from a  few years back. First published in James Gunn's Ad Astra and then in my collection The Poet of Utah Park

Silent Spirit

The pictures were brilliant

the best ever seen from the

surface of Mars. Then

as it reached out

to touch that surface,

like Adam reaching

to touch the finger of God,

it died, sending only a

nondescript tone across

millions of miles –

a heart monitor flatlined

leaving humanity listening

with perked ears and

waiting on Opportunity.

Kenny A. Chaffin