“NASA plans to grow food on future spacecraft and on other planets as a food supplement for astronauts. Fresh food, such as vegetables, provide essential vitamins and nutrients that will help enable sustainable deep space pioneering.” NASA
Here, a red moon rides on the humps of the low river hills. It’s always a red moon, always low in the sky. The rivers do flow, but the water is. . .different. There’s no blue sky, fluffy white, cotton ball clouds, or golden, blushing dawn. Perhaps it’s some consolation that we can see a million stars–shimmering, sparkling jewels, in constellations that are becoming familiar to me now. I’ve started to name them—that one that looks like a dog, Dorcas for my old hound. And that one—just above? I’ve named it Peter Rabbit.
I see it from the greenhouse, rising over the salad greens. Slowly, we’re putting down roots. My baby will be born soon. I’ll name her Sylvia for my mom. We will make our garden grow, and perhaps she will plant a forest for this new Eden.
A bit of flash fiction for Prosery Monday. Lillian has selected two lines from Carl Sandburg’s “Jazz Fantasia.” I chose the line above in italics. My poem has nothing to do with his evocative poem. It’s actually a sort of sequel to an earlier prosery piece I wrote, which you can read here, if you’re so inclined. My mom’s name really was Sylvia, and she didn’t garden, but she loved gardens. For some reason, this song from Leonard Bernstein’s Candide popped into my head while I was writing. It always makes me cry.
Yesterday and today: Merril's historical musings 
A splendid slice of Sci Fi flash fiction/prosery. Brought to mind the movie THE MARTIAN.
Thank you so much, Glenn.
The Martian was a good movie. 😀
This is a wonderful post and the contrast between the first line and the landscape you describe, no rivers but amazing stars….so very well done. I’d not heard this song…enjoyed listening to it. I love that this is in first person as I can “experience” it more intently and intimately. I love the naming of the stars.
I’m so glad you posted to the prompt. Just really really enjoyed this post! Thank you!
Wow–thank you so much for your enthusiastic comment, Lillian! I so appreciate it.
I really like Candide. When my older daughter was in high school, she had such a crush on Kristin Chenoweth, and a friend got her the video of this production. It also had the Westminster Choir, and her friend was attending the college there.
What sci-fi fun this was. So creative to be naming the stars. Perhaps starlight will be good for the Eden.
Thank you, Beverly!
It must be strange to see space from another planet. Or even from the moon, like when astronauts saw Earth rising.
Nicely done, Merril. I enjoyed this!
Thanks so much, Jill!
I like the otherworldly beauty in your tale, the hopefulness, and the different but still the sameness of that place with earth, our home.
Thank you very much for your close reading. I imagine that we would take those things with us.
You are welcome, my pleasure.
Wow! Stunning writing.
Thank you very much!!
Read the Lux Mentis – and then this. Made more lovely with the infusion of your Sylvia…
BTW: Agrodolce Vita is a colloquial term from my family that I noticed too late isn’t referenced on Mr. Google: It means ‘bittersweet life’…
hugs.
Thank you so much, Laura. Thank you for going back to read the first story–and for the hugs!
Bittersweet life–perfect.
As I read your prosery, I had a sense of what had led up to it, so I read the linked piece, and my sense was right. I hope the new Eden doesn’t go the way of the one they had to flee.
Thank you very much, Liz. I appreciate that you went back to read the first piece. I also hope the new Eden doesn’t go the way of the first.
You’re welcome, Merril.
Wonderful description and very evocative.
Thank you very much, Luanne!
I like your surreal futuristic world… I love this line.. . I see it from the greenhouse, rising over the salad greens.
Thank you so much, Dwight. I was probably thinking about dinner when I wrote it. 😀
:>)
I love this as a sequel (that I gladly went back to, to read). Beautiful, Merril.
Thank you very much–and thank you for going back and reading the earlier story, too!
I couldn’t not 😉
Awwww. 😀
😊
What a great piece, Merril! It reminds me of Trumbull’s film ‘Silent Running’, one of my favourite sci-fi films, especially the scene in which Freeman Lowell, the botanist and ecologist cultivates crops and tends to animals he and his three colleagues are towing in geodesic domes, like enormous greenhouses, with a large spaceship called Valley Forge, as plant life on Earth is becoming extinct. I love that your new Eden is on another planet, with that ‘red moon, always low in the sky’ and ‘a million stars–shimmering, sparkling jewels, in constellations’.
Thank you so much, Kim.
I know I saw Silent Running many years ago, but I don’t remember it. But I’m pleased my story reminded you of a favorite.
A wonderful fusing development of the quotation and the song. (something awry with the lip-sync?)
Thank you very much, Derrick.
Yes, I think it was not the best video, but I liked their voices, and that production was a favorite of my older daughter’s when she a senior in high school. 😀
Nice one, bravo. Luv your idea of naming baby and stars
Much✏love
Thank you very much, Gillena!
such a beautiful story Merril – loved it!
Thank you so much!
This slice of Eden (or Eden-to-be) is the only likely solution we have. I don’t imagine it ever happening on Earth. Well done, Merril.
Thank you, Ken. Yes, you’re probably right. Sigh.
This is a lovely future to imagine. Great use of the poem’s line too. (K)
Thank you very much, Kerfe!
Merril, what a creative piece. I love naming the stars that look like a dog Dorcas.
Thank you so much, Linda! 😀
Sci-fi is my fav. Put me in mind of Bradbury’s “The Million-Year Picnic” from The Martian Chronicles
Thank you very much. That is quite a compliment!
Evocative, filled with equal parts hope and longing, with almost an implicit sense of homesickness! A beautiful write!
Thank you so much, Frank!
Neat!!!! Sci-fi, but very, very human! You have a way.
Aww–thanks so much, Resa!