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"It is good to renew one's wonder," said the philosopher

"Space travel has again made children of us all"

January 1999: ROCKET SUMMER

One minute it was Ohio winter, with doors closed, s locked, the panes blind with frost, icicles fringing every roof, children skiing on slopes, housewives lu the icy streets

And then a long wave of war sea of hot air; it seemed as if so the cottages and bushes and children The icicles dropped, shattering, to melt The doors flew open The s flew up The children worked off their wool clothes The housewives shed their bear disguises The snow dissolved and showed last sureen lawns

Rocket su houses Rocket su the frost patterns on the s, erasing the art work The skis and sleds suddenly useless The snow, falling from the cold sky upon the town, turned to a hot rain before it touched the ground

Rocket su porches and watched the reddening sky

The rocket lay on the launching field, blowing out pink clouds of fire and oven heat The rocket stood in the cold winter hty exhausts The rocket made climates, and summer lay for a brief moment upon the land

February 1999: YLLA

They had a house of crystal pillars on the planet Mars by the edge of an eolden fruits that grew fro the house with handfuls ofall dirt with it, bleay on the hot wind Afternoons, when the fossil sea arm and motionless, and the wine trees stood stiff in the yard, and the little distant Martian bone toas all enclosed, and no one drifted out their doors, you could see Mr K hi frolyphs over which he brushed his hand, as one ers stroked, a voice sang, a soft ancient voice, which told tales of when the sea was red steam on the shore and ancient men had carried clouds of metal insects and electric spiders into battle

Mr and Mrs K had lived by the dead sea for twenty years, and their ancestors had lived in the same house, which turned and followed the sun, flower-like, for ten centuries

Mr and Mrs K were not old They had the fair, brownish skin of the true Martian, the yellow coin eyes, the softpictures with che in the canals in the seasons when the wine trees filled theether by the blue phosphorous portraits in the speaking room

They were not happy now

Thisto the desert sands heat, ly run on the horizon

So to happen

She waited

She watched the blue sky of Mars as if it rip in on itself, contract, and expel a shininghappened

Tired of waiting, she walked through thefroently on her On hot days it was like walking in a creek The floors of the house glittered with cool strea his book steadily, his fingers never tired of the old songs Quietly she wished heher like a little harp as he did his incredible books

But no She shook her head, an i Her eyelids closed softly down upon her golden eyes Marriage

She lay back in a chair that moved to take her shape even as she htly and nervously

The dream occurred

Her brown fingers trerasped at the air A

She glanced about swiftly, as if expecting someone there before her She seemed disappointed; the space between the pillars was empty