they are very rough when they sing
their vibratos are intergalactic
high and zigzagged with enormous BOOMS!
and crash into sky
and into Earth

but on Earth they translate the sounds to be birds
and bird wings—they’ve come to call it:
an ornithological phenomenon
how these tiny bodies can emit crashing sounds
from their larynx and feathers
and make them echo around the solar system
is a mystery or two

but no one suspects them
on top of their mountains
surrounded by red sand
tracked with utility vehicles, rovers,
so succulent-free
that you aim to drink the earth
and blink when their proximals help them float
against a martian cold

they bring to the desert false colours;
hues of yellows, greens, and purples
and behind them they leave feathers,
ticklish things to be found by astronaut-scientists
citizens of sand and rocks
which accumulate as field notes tell of their history:
they won’t be catalogued
but they will be arranged by locality