Space: Halley's Comet

You may not know, but earth gets a regular visitor.
And I mean regular, as in, with regularity.
It's far from a common occurrence
But, well, I like to imagine there's a purpose to the visit.

That, far far away, a grand council of others spotted this planet
That they saw it developing, so young as it then was.
And, for the purposes of science and stories
The decided that, every 3 generations, they would monitor our progress

And then they waited

They would have seen so much in our time.
I'd like to think they applauded the young man
The one who, only seeing their comet once, realised the pattern
That they watched, possibly unable to help, as we delved further into war

That these watchers note carefully the steps we've made
That they can see us start to stare up at them
That they let us grow
They watched us be slow

And then

They visited in 1910. And the world was starting to turn.
We'd blackened the land so we could travel it faster
We'd explored the world so we could command it
We had progressed for personal gain

Then, in 1986, they visited again. And the world had turned many times.
They'd seen the greatest period of peace in history
They'd seen us learn to communicate across the seas
They saw that we had finally started to explore beyond earth

Yet they will visit again. They always do
In 2061, the comet will fly by again
The earth will have turned many more times
And I wonder what the watchers will see

This is a little similar to a previous poem of mine, so apologies, but I liked this execution better. Also, there's a slight inaccuracy here. You see, for a rather odd reason, Halley's comet will be visible later this month (21st-22nd ish), a little earlier than planned. Maybe they got so keen to see what had happened next that they couldn't wait for an update.