Orbital Silence

Between Mars and Jupiter, fragments circle the Sun,
body following body through the same vast belt.
Nothing holds them in a single procession.
Each body keeps its own inclination, its own speed,
its own distance from the light.

Then Jupiter enters the equation.

Three revolutions for one.
Five for two.
Seven for three.
Two for one.

The ratios repeat until certain orbits
cannot remain where they were.
A small body returns to the same encounter
with Jupiter again and again,
and each return alters the next.

The belt gathers around the disturbance.

No boundary divides the space.
No line is drawn through it.
Only fewer bodies where the numbers
have done their work.

Beyond the interval, the asteroids continue.
Another cluster follows another course.
The Sun keeps its center.
Jupiter keeps moving.

Nothing marks the place between them.

Only the count changes.

A body enters an orbit
and finds no company there.
Another appears.
Another is driven away.

Still the belt appears whole
when seen from far enough away.

The closer the chart becomes,
the more the intervals emerge,
spaces written between thousands
of moving points.

Three to one.
Five to two.
Seven to three.
Two to one.

The numbers remain.

The bodies move on.

What Jupiter leaves behind
stays between the orbits.

It remains the space
where the pattern breaks.