I’m walking out to the mailbox tonight to pick up the day’s mail, as is my wont. As I walk I’m listening intently to Movement 2 of Vangelis’ Mythodea, which my brother gave me for my birthday. Vangelis composed this music for the 2001 NASA Mars Odyssey mission. It’s wild, operatic music with choirs and pan pipes and harps. It’s awesome. My brain can’t seem to get enough. As I drift toward home from the mailbox I glance up into the eastern night sky and am struck to the spot.

Mars rules the heavens tonight.
Glorious, rampant,
Brighter than Jupiter’s memory,
He stands alone in a sky washed clean of stars
By waning Luna, who, despite her size, seems
Shoved south off stage—hidden, sometimes entirely,
By torn clouds. A reddish halo
Surrounds her when obscured, like
Blood spreading through water.
Vangelis’ furious paean fills my ears.
I stand immobile,
stupefied,
like prey,
in Ares’ thrall.