My First Galactic Image

Through a luminous telescope
on a night watch
along the Urals,
my enlarged eyes will elevate
through lightning and fog
at foaming clouds
and new pulsing shared stars
with a scalable opacity.

Gripped with excitement
by the emerging moon
and a cinematic vision
of another world,
I know we will scale up
and stretch out with her
in spiraling orbits of sky
opening and admitting
with a wish to communicate
to all outer-space offers
to an all-absorbed poet.

I compose a piano sonata
“The Gravity Sonata in B”
based on Baudelaire’s verse
“Favors of the Moon,”
which I memorized for French class,
and John Williams’ “Star Wars”
with new contemplative insight
into a limitless universe.