PAD Day 25: Remix Time

 Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "remix" poen, and (2) "write your own poem in which you use at least three metaphors for a single thing, include an exclamation, ruminate on the definition of a word, and come back in the closing line to the image or idea with which you opened the poem."

Robert usually includes the "remix" prompt toward the end of the month. It means to take a poem or poems you have written in the month of April and "remix" them somehow. For instance, turning a free-verse poem into a sonnet (or vice versa), or mash up two or more poems into a new one, etc. I usually take lines from several of the poems I've written in April and rearrange them into a new poem. But that wouldn't quite work with the second prompt, which sort of dictates that you use at least some new material. So what I did was to borrow a few lines from previous poems and weave them into this new one, which I did, while following the rather complex second prompt. The phrases I used from prior poems were "bright escalator" (Day 24), "roller-coaster whiplash" (Day 23), and "[their] other spaceship, the round blue one" (Day 17), all of which figured into the three metaphors; "Amaze, amaze, amaze!" (Day 9), which counted as my exclamation; and "no matter how far you travel/you always come back home" (Day 12), which served as my closing "return to theme" lines. I also satisfied the prompt by briefly ruminating on the words "astronomical" and "Artemis." So here it is:

Artemis

 
They rise, plowing the lower atmosphere
on a bright escalator of flame,
the roller-coaster whiplash of G-force
and escape velocity as they leave
the embrace of their other spaceship,
the round blue one, on their mission
to slingshot around the Moon.
 
Midway between the Earth and Moon,
they marvel at the views of both
from opposite windows, and NASA,
quoting a popular movie alien,
replies, “Amaze, amaze, amaze!”
 
Artemis, named after the huntress goddess,
speeds like an arrow toward its target.
Artemis, the matron goddess of girls and women,
carries a mission specialist, a woman
who inspires others of her gender to say,
“I’d like to do that too.”
 
This will be the furthest humans have traveled
from Earth, but the journey has just begun.
As we probe deeper into the universe,
what are the odds against meeting another
intelligent species, even one who says “Amaze”?
Astronomical. From the Greek, meaning literally
pertaining to the charting of stars. But “astronomical”
does not mean "impossible."
 
Three red parachutes blossom in the Pacific sky,
gently setting down four travelers in the sea,
the mission a rousing success.
Through all the curiosity, awe, and hard work,
they’ve kept with them the hope
that no matter how far you travel,
you always come back home.