Years ago, I liked to know
[color=white]OOO[/color]What transpired in the sky
The pointillistic pageantry
Extending knowledge here below
The spinning planets, there and fro
[color=white]OOO[/color]That Earthly hem belie.

To find the slope on telescope
[color=white]OOO[/color]On a moonless, cloudless night
Of red Antares, in the south
Was to tie a different rope
And speak of freedom in a trope
[color=white]OOO[/color]When drift was all my sight.

If the moon, to let it tune
[color=white]OOO[/color]The instrument's glare
Upon its oceans gray with dust
And shores shone white in blacking noon
The fence between the sun and hue
[color=white]OOO[/color]Of emptiness’s stare.

Time would pass, on hourglass
[color=white]OOO[/color]Turns and fortunes led me find
Desiderata on the ground
To abrogate the shiftless class
Whose membership I’d not surpass
[color=white]OOO[/color]By looking ‘yond the blind.

Now I see, in spite of me,
[color=white]OOO[/color]Constellations twinkled dim
And thoughts of galaxies are flown—
Replaced by worldly claims that be
And boxed, the old refractory
[color=white]OOO[/color]Once gifted on a whim.