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.
The Writing of John B. Randall 