Sights to See

I was a college sophomore
when first I peered at bodies far away
through a telescope. Not a big
gigantic thing, a structure unto itself,
but it would do. For what we sought to find,
it would do just fine.

On that chilly autumn night I saw
the rings of Saturn and the
craters of the moon,
still devoid of human tread.

You're dating yourself the poet's muse
reminded him before he could
strike the next key. That's
all right, replied the receptacle,
I'm a cheap date.

I thought the sights I saw
deep in the October night
were spectacular and, to my
brief history, unique.

The next day dawned, bright
and crisp, the very best of autumn's lot.
I looked upon the panoply of hues,
busy dying upon the trees, and
then it came to me.

This, too, had a wonder of its own.
For all my fascination
with the dark and barren forms beyond
the business end of the lens,
nothing on the rocks I saw
could ever conceive of this.