Life on Mars

While missiles fly amidst boastful taunts and puffed-out chests, survival of Mars depends on a memory that awakens a yearning for our better selves. The great war god, starved by the irritations of inconvenient truths, gorges himself on retribution. He calls it justice. Far away, the red planet named after him offers perspective, gazing sunward on that blue-green orb that once dreamed of peace and restoration. Perhaps it still does!

Hail the month of March
Cradling hope of equinox
A balance renewed.

(c) Dennis Ryle, March 2026

This is a haibun, a short bit of prose that is concluded with a haiku. dVerse host, Frank Tassone hosts this week’s Haibun Monday, “where we blend haiku with prose in the form Basho made famous.”
We are invited to write our own tribute to the theme of Tracy K. Smith’s “Life on Mars” exploring grief, cosmic wonder, and the search for meaning in a universe marked by loss and mystery, framed especially through elegy for her father and reflections on humanity’s place in the vast unknown.