What is JWST?   An innocent Q.
But deserving of prose.  I knew just what to do.

It's  ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶  jwst our first space flower,
Unfurling its hexagons.
Golden petals that thirst for the most ancient photons.

Jwst the thing that can see so much further than we
would have ever dared dream in the last century.

So you'd think it'd be hard to see our backyard,
After red galaxies melding with CMB.
But it's shadowy seat is what gives us the treat,
Of our hard to reach planets in infrared heat.

James Webb Space Telescope
Keeps surpassing all hopes.
30 years to develop.  At least twice we went broke!

A 10 year orbital cosmology store.
Survived through max Q,  and keeps giving us more.
30 years in the womb.  Twas a legacy born.

We needed some space,
So we got a massive bed.
“Where'd you go?”she said

I had a planet,
just a little one
but still.

it had activities--
recreational
illicit
volcanic.

from a promontory above one of its seas,
I pondered what to do with a drunken sailor
early in the morning.

I had to rent out my little planet
due to the commute.
Years passed.

When I returned and saw
what the renters had done,
I brought the flood in my righteous anger.

Things are better now,
lo these many months gone by.

I have a koi pond with native goldfish.
I sleep in until lazy o'clock
or until the stars wheel above my gingerbread cottage.

The sailor got sober, survived the flood,
and sings, "Weigh-hay and up she rises"
when I stir

both my happy ***,
and the coffee he has kindly fixed
the way he knows I like it.

I have a planet,
just a little one
but still.

I’m waiting more, enjoying more
of the space between -
words, notes, breaths -
the space I don’t need
to step into, giving it up
for another.

I’m watching more, listening for
what comes next.
Not anticipating but enjoying
the not-yet.

Who knows?
God may speak again.

You wanted the sun.
I gave you the moon-
but only the stars could shine
even as we burned to ash
I enchanted the auroras
with my effervescent glow

It was not man’s dream
to walk the Earth, or gander at the spectacles in the sky—looking at shooting stars different in color and size that appeared white to our naked eyes.

The dream of an astronaut is that of a child.
Because children don't let go of their ambitions.

Always seeing all the colors of the moon lit stars, which is regular to them.

A telescope and a room filled with geniuses is the comparison here.
It was never ironic for the world's prodigies to consider taking a path in space exploration.

Willing to make a name for themselves, they would want to be as big as the sun.
With little to no care of what risk it might pose.

——————————
The Day Of Launch:

“Apollo 11 was the first successful crewed mission to land humans on the Moon. Launched on July 16, 1969, the mission culminated in Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin becoming the first humans to walk on the lunar surface on July 20, 1969, fulfilling President Kennedy's 1961 goal.“

You looked at the magazines stapled together.

Today you walk grown ready to engage with bodies outside of your world.

The ship is titled upward and the rocket propelled directly up, the countdown is only brief—because of time.

Today or Tomorrow you have left Earth behind.

…

Distortion in Space, a place where everything is lost.

A time when a grown man wishes it was a dream—because of the foolishness of this world’s product…children.

What is there to know but what is unknown
To feel it so near yet never grasp it
Ponder at what lays ever beyond
The horizons of all understanding

To be at peace in grasping
All knowledge will never be attained
Yet we will search it out nonetheless
And our species will spend all its eons
Be they long or short

That our wonder may never cease

Please, give me space,
And all the stars above.
Here, the never ending sky,
A gaze of hopeless love.

Drench me in epiphany,
And hold on to my soul.
Filled by suns — galactic light,
Each step takes a tole.

Dance with me swiftly,
And let the void billow, bloom.
A sweet tango of lovers,
Kiss me — spark the fume.

Forever, oh ever, I'll dream,
Of the sky, the stars and space.
I'll let the cosmos drift on by,
As I take in every loving inch,

Of your sweet, heavenly face.