A Jovian Year

Almost every night

The tall, bald old man

Sits up in his chair

With his reading light

Gleaming off his head,

Bent over Hugo’s

Les Misérable,

Which he’s never read

But will now plow through,

In this year’s small hours

Of insomnia,

For something to do.

In the dark beyond

His house, Jupiter

Outshines all the stars,

Bright right up to dawn.

Almost every night

This year, that giant,

Reflective planet,

Has stayed up and bright,

Not that the old man

Reading notices.

Nights may have shaped him,

Helped him understand

How his small world spins,

But his own kind loom

In his reflections,

Soaking stories in.

And as wandering

Stars are also dim,

Captive local specks,

What he’s pondering

In literature’s

A tight perspective,

Orbiting little

Human adventures.