Jupiter's Great Red Spot

Birthed
and bred at a time when
the solar system pained from
the incessant sting of jagged rock,
you thundered the hydrogen-rich gases
of upper atmosphere, whirling amber, as
old as solar wind, a maelstrom strutting on
an immense orb.  Mighty cyclone, are you the
cinnabar eye, the pure iris of ruby and maroon?
You stir that’s planet’s loft, prowling like hunger,
frantic as the ancient nebula you once witnessed.
You could encircle many earths, with force to
sand continents as smooth as a billiard ball.
Perhaps you are the blood of a planetary
god left there eons ago to mark that
great world, assigned as cosmic
identification, an insignia
that lingers through
lifetimes.

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