I’d Be Remiss If I Never

1.     They said
        Jupiter's moons
        Would be visible
        Through binoculars
        In June but I
        Never saw them
        Because I never
        Even looked.

2.             Final day of June.
        I was walking Hugo
               when I noticed a misfit
        Star piggybacking Scorpius.  I
                thought:  that doesn't
        Look right.  Could that be— 

3.     It was, Jupiter.  Brighter
               than ruddy Antares,
        star-heart of Scorpius, nemesis
               of Mars, favorite of Tu Fu,
        Over China, a thousand years ago.  The
                sky comes together, what I know of it
        And what I am still learning, a 
                constellation all its own.

4.      It's July, a week later and one state over,
                 but the sky has grown only 
         One half-hour different in that time.
                 So I wasn't surprised to look up, 
         See Scorpius, plain as a portrait, there again
                 with Jupiter, too bright to be a star.

5.     Because it was getting late and
                because binoculars are harsh in the dark
         I went inside, then online
                to confirm, to scout the sky
         I'd be squinting at.  If I could 
                 see Jupiter's moons—
         They would array in a line-up 
                        with their mammoth planet.

6.     The binoculars shook as I held them.
                I peered through them with only
                         one eye, my left and best.
         Jupiter burned like a silent firework,
                a glowing worm squiggling
                         across my shaking field of vision.
         Yet, its best moons were there, three
                little pinpricks of light in pano
                         with their planet, despite its 
                    planetary glare.