Shallow oceans for the sailing
Temperatures benign at best
Through the telescope tube’s lens?
Venus! She invited tropical whaling
 
Old Tikhov sketched what the probes
would find with a quick & chary math
He predicted a nursemaid covered in plants
Waggish blue stolons on clear flushing lobes
 
Later, people laughed at those precepts
But never his wife, Ludmila Popova
Diminutive? Yes, but just a hop over
From his side, sketching a sky, she is
 
She sees what is true, robust, & upright
To silence the agitators & Tikhov as well
She can fix cauldrons of notions to tell
Tightening scope, blue buds she sights