Things Which Are Not Comets

The king’s comet ferret,

Young Monsieur Messier,

Caught a fuzzy object

In his telescope out

Of the corner of his

Eye and realized it

Was itself, not, in fact,

A comet, so, to be

Helpful and make a name

For himself, Messier

Began cataloguing

All the fuzzy objects

In the sky not comets.

That first one was a gas

Cloud from a ruptured star.

Many of the others

Turned out to be entire

Galaxies to themselves.

Thus, your world’s expanded,

Attending to what’s not

What you wanted to find.