Best way for this new-to-the-board fan to respond to the board topic would be to post a short Ray-inspired poem. Would that be kosher?

Only if you're Jewish.

Baruch haba!

Or maybe even brucha haba'a.

Go for it!

I think transformed Martians are welcome here.

There was supposed to be a rule against it, but no one knew about it and everyone ignored it.

All I say about fiction and poetry is keep length and content within reason.

Thanks for your encouragement. If you like this, thank Mr. Bradbury. If not, my bad.

In his essay collection, 'Bradbury Speaks', Mr. Bradbury begins the essay, 'Predicting the Past, Remembering the Future' with: "Of what is past, or passing, or to come", from Yeats's 'Sailing to Byzantium'. Had to stop reading there and then and read the poem. Then had to ask, 'What might Yeat's Minstrel from the Golden Bough sing?' This is what came to mind. (Apologies for spacing and format not translating well to post.)

This Further Shore
By Will Jones


Of What is Past

We came through tidal pools, climbing up rock
And sand to lands already gardened with
Cycad, fern and ginkgo. Through eons, our
Fragile thread of countless lives connected
Subtle change by subtle change to form the
Creature in His image, and take up rock
And sand and, like Him, create as needed,
Far flung from the Devonian shore.


Or Passing

Rock and sand and adding steel, cast we our
Edifices skyward. And from same sky,
Dropping steel with Shiva’s fire, razed we our
Creation, and our brothers, and our souls.
Now, through a fiery glass, not darkly view
We our stain'ed hands... our traitorous hearts...
His image; and through salt tears gaze skyward on a
Mars-rise promise from our glass and steel shore.


Or To Come

On Valles Marineris’ shore soon we’ll
Stand, come already in His image. Borne
By steel and glass to a new world’s desert
Sea on earth’s red sun-waltz partner, we’ll climb
Again rock and sand yet untouched by our
Kind. With these first steps, the ochre sea will
Decry: Wonder or havoc shall it be
That we visit upon this further shore?

Golden-Eyed,
You grok Bradbury.
Enjoyed your poem much.
-B. Tarkas

Thanks! Brother. Your reply means a lot.

There are a few obscure references: Devonian (the geologic period 560 million+ yrs ago, during which amphibians first moved from sea to land); Shiva's fire (the A-Bomb - ref. Oppenheimer's quote from the Bhagavad Gita after the first test); glass...darkly (as in looking glass...obscured (from I Corinthians 13:12); and Valles Marineris - the Martian uber valley.

"May you never be thirsty."