Aaron Peck : The Winds of Jupiter

In spite of our better selves

we say, ‘it is beautiful’

as if to imply that

our witness of it

confers a meaning

that its inherent

movements lack:

a sphere so terrifying

it could absorb 1,300 earths

clouds of marbled

orange and white

blue at the poles,

our sighting of which,

after Voyager passed,

changes nothing—

what we can picture

but not comprehend,

like the storm cloud

in its centre

itself the size of earth

which may rage

for decades,

or centuries,

and which was depicted

on the t-shirt I wore

as a boy—

*

imagines

the sun reflecting

off a shiny object

flung beyond

Mars, then swinging

past the asteroid belt

toward that hoary

sphere of wind,

a path that would take

less time to travel

than it takes

for a young boy to grow

in the remote reaches

of a remote country

*

And then

at eighteen

in musée d’Orsay,

I struggle to recall

more than 

turning the corner

to discover

Burial at Ornans,

a painting

I thought I disliked,

un

éclat de rire

a burst of

laughter,

I saw something

of myself in those figures,

in Courbet’s

anger—

*

What were the first

details I marked? The dog

glancing off, the drunken

priests with noses blooming

in rosacea, families more bored

than in mourning, the sinister

crucifix? No, it was

the mood the drab sky

that murmured its sigh

of complete and utter

capital unimportance.

*

Wind in the pines

a crowd in a

café parking lot

red sun against

hills, late summer

sounds from inside

chords thundering

from Steve Albini’s guitar

to signal the start

of his show—

I never knew 

such anger

within me.

Nor what pleasure

it provided.

*

The waves of Squally Point where

the lake bends toward

the city of Penticton

my father’s father threw his

tantrums and ate his roast beef

he insisted those winds

were the strongest

their waves crashing

on Antler’s Beach.

Of his funeral, years later,

I remember nothing.

*

Sagebrush

on the edge

of the mesa

a dull grey-green    

undulating toward

the lake, depths

of which

have yet to be

measured

*

“We just know enough

to know we were wrong”—

the temperature above

the 10,000 mile-wide red spot

averaged 25,000 Farenheit

at our last measurement,

theories that its shape

has diminished

since Galileo may yet

prove inaccurate: 

Yet, when Voyager flew by,

in the year of my birth,

its width

was 14,500 miles.

*

The immensity of the sphere,

as if it is watching us, is

unfathomable: its size, shape or

position in a cosmos in which

it is less than a spec, without

consciousness, we might say,

as if it is something ‘we’

have—an image of

storms along its northern

hemisphere, taken by

Juno on 3 November 2019

3,300 miles from the

atmosphere, itself suspended

in an abyss as it captures

the curve of the planet,

the storm clouds, waves

dangling off the edge.

*

No, it’s not the sky, it’s

the open grave into which

no one glances while the man

with the crucifix leers

directly at us

*

The pallbearers

in long-brimmed

hats port the

blanketed

coffin toward

its pit

at the bottom

center of the

picture

*

The wind along the lake

from a car, the hills

of the valley

heading toward

a small beach

between two willow trees

*

I watched 2001

in a cemented basement

the dead astronaut

in robotic arms

released

into infinite float

near Jupiter’s perturbed

moons

*

Metis

Adrastea

Amalthea

Thebe

Io

Europa

Ganymede

Callisto

Themisto

Leda

Himalia

Ersa

Pandia

Lysiethea

Elara

Dia

Carpo

S/2003 J 12 (lost)

Valetudo

Euporie

Eupheme

S/2003 J 18

S/2010 J 2

Thelxinoe

Euanthe

Helike

Orthosie

S/2017 J 7

S/2016 J 1

S/2017 J 3

locaste

S/2003 J 16 (lost)

Praxidike

Harpalyke

Mneme

Mermippe

Thyone

S/2017 J 9

Ananke

Herse

Aitne

S/2017 J 6

S/2011 J 1

Kale

Taygete

S/2003 J 19

Caldene

Philophrosyne

S/2003 J 10 (lost)

S/2003 J 23 (lost)

Eriome

Aoede

Kallichore

S/2017 J 5

S/2017 J 8

Kalyke

Carme

Callirrhoe

Eurydome

S/2017 J 2

Pasithee

S/2010 J 1

Kore

Cyllene

S/2011 J2

Eukelade

S/2017 J 1

S/2003 J 4 (lost)

Pasiphae

Hegemone

Arche

Isonoe

S/2003 J 9 (lost)

Eirene

Sinope

Sponde

Autonoe

Megaclite

S/2003 J 2 (lost)

*

The

marble

force

of wind

around which

they

orbit

seems

to

breathe

*

Off highway 97

a graveyard,

tombstones

in Chinese script

from when workers

laid tracks that

brought prosperity

to other men—

around it, nothing is left

except brittle grass

*

How similar

it felt

to this lack

of being

nowhere

what I had not

yet registered

as stupidity

which is

everywhere

And now

as I circumambulate

a museum

where

a friend

works

I cannot

quite

fathom

its quotidian

fact

*

That crowd

of mourners

on the right

the women

who cover

their face

have

in their drabness

windswept

dignity

*

And the king in his rage

is at times beautiful

only at a distance when his

violence and force are just

colors that make us ponder

our own mutual powerlessness

in an infinite span hurtling

toward even more wonders whose

energies again are expended

for no witness and letting go

in that imaginary drift

we can love what we thought

had tied us to our particular

landscapes but instead

unmoors us as we too

scatter with solar winds

Aaron Peck is a contributing editor at frieze magazine. He is also the author of a novella, The Bewilderments of Bernard Willis, a collaborative art book, Letters to the Pacific, and a monograph, Jeff Wall: North & West.

His work has appeared in Walrus magazine, New York Review of Books “Daily,” The Happy Reader, Artforum, Music & Literature, bookforum.com, The Halloween Review, The White Review and Joyland. This is his first published poem in over fifteen years.