Pat Forster

URANUS
Uranus, hidden from the Ancients' view
Saturn they thought was last in line
Then Herschel calculated movement way out beyond
Newtonian law ravaged thoughts
Astronomers tracked eighty-four earth years of journeying
To find a barrel rolling on its side
Fifteen moons in your firm, noble branch of the family
Extraordinary seasons fill one year
Constant sunshine North and South
Whilst East and West in frigid darkness stay
Polar night, forty two years in being
Day time, forty two years of constant light
Voyager Two's fly-by, logged a planet quiet and still
No party boy is this sublime aquamarine ball
Enticing, enchanting one
Taking a transient look, they spotted nine tiny
New moons sitting in narrow bangles, blacker
Than black, darkest in all of solar life.
Miranda close companion moon though no beauty queen
Sports the best mountain climbing in the waste
Man seeks to return one day to play
Olympian creation named you Heaven
A shield from the hundred-handed giant
Uranus, father of the Roman god Saturn.
It's all happening up there
Interstellar travellers reveal a magical universe
Ever shifting landscapes, light in all its beauty
Flowing to and fro comes out of pitch blackness
As space craft sail on, on, past the web of life
Towards hazy infinity.