Juno

Even the night smelled like honeysuckle

with the wind out of the south just right. 

School had ended. Summer was limitless.

It would be a month before I had to undertake

the wholesale murder of Japanese beetles

for the sake of the daisies and 4 o'clocks.

After a long wait, news broke that 

NASA's space probe Juno was approaching Jupiter,

preparing to orbit the giant dozens of times.

I pictured a tiny craft circling, searching like 

beetles drowning in a bucket of water.

One night we crowded around the telescope 

just outside the streetlight pool at the driveway's end.

My son and a few of the neighborhood kids

were taking turns looking at the moon, then Jupiter.

One little boy, having spent a few moments looking,

lifted his head. "I think I saw an astronaut," he said

eyes wide, big smile, enjoying his exaggeration.

I bent to the eyepiece for another long look,

then nodded knowingly as if to verify his observation,

to verify a season of limitless possibilities.

We laughed as he ran off into the street

to catch up with his friends and the ridiculous freedom

that lives in the summertime darkness.