Red Rover
(Raanana, February 15, 2019)

“Red Rover, Red Rover,
Send Opportunity over (to Mars)”
Was perhaps its final ironical thought
As Opportunity's battery ran low,
After Martian winds failed to blow off
The dust piled thick on its solar panels
From that last Martian storm.
After fourteen years of plodding exploration
Learning every inch of those twenty-eight
Square miles of red sand and rock.
With Curiosity rover so near,
Just fifty-two hundred miles away,
And yet so far, at only a few feet a day
It would take over forty-three years
For it to reach Opportunity
And what could she do anyway?
She couldn't hose my solar panels
Or wipe dust off with a soft cloth,
Not that Opportunity really had a brain,
But in the final seconds of nominal systems
Some might say a wave of sadness leaped
From Opportunity's antennas
Across a heartless emptiness
To the Earth-side team members
Who hugged each other one last time,
Donned coats and scarves,
And turned off their monitors
And the lights.