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"This level of detail… A new world is revealed day after day.”
—Physicist Etienne Klein

“Holy shit!” says one of the astro-physicists
who launched the Webb, 
and stuck it up there in the sky
like my daughter’s old finger-painting 
left to ripen on the fridge.  
 
Then, it opened, like a flower blooming 
in one of those Disney shorts when I was a kid,
that taught us all about beauty,
but used to make me impatient
as I moseyed through my neighbor’s gardens 
mornings on the way to school
 
So the Webb is up there swaddled by stars in L2,
perched between Venus and the Sun
taking snapshots of the history of the universe,
except for that wayward slice of chorizo
which, though quite lovely, is no Proxima Centauri--
 
These pictures might be millions of years old--
about how long it takes light to travel
from so far away.  It defies common sense--
like the 1990 photo of me the DMV 
keeps on my driver’s license. 
No cop will believe it when he pulls me over
as I’m speeding through the universe. 
 
These days, I’d rather just slow 
to an old man’s crawl
and get to the clinic on time. 
No fear of missing out for me!
I’ll gladly keep my distance, content to wait
long as it takes for science to weigh in 
with its incomprehensible results, which,

in star-time, never ever changes much of anything.