We are spiders that fly on silk
Each strand put out to snare
Some seemingly solid structure;
A branch we may build a web on,
Or the windshield of a moving car.
Our goal is a perfect circle,
The web that bears its own foundations -
The guarantee that we no longer have to glide,
When branches fall
Or whole trees begin to drift into the air.
With each cast we amputate
A single silken limb;
And lose a little of our weight.
We reduce and suffer,
But still we send great tracks of gossamer,
Like checkered see-through wings,
To search the sky;
How else could we capture flying things,
And drink their memories of flight?
We flew once or twice ourselves,
And friends that build on flimsy branches
Assure us
That flying is more beautiful
First hand.
But some of us believe
In eating flight;
For flight is life,
And when you eat life,
It dies,
And death is real,
And death wants to be alive.
So we try to build circles,
As we can think of nothing else,
That could bear the weight,
Of meals that teach invincible demise;
Of flies that we can drink eternally,
Who will tell us always,
That flight both lives and dies.
Occasionally, we catch the like -
Great butterflies like birds,
These guests we gladly drink for years,
That eat and grow besides us,
As banquets of prey
Fall fast on our deep-woven webs;
Enticed to suicide
By the net that's built from butterfly.
Sometimes, if we cannot build enough,
Then web and body and captive bug
Together are nudged,
By the demon eating life and death,
Whose name is silent hunger.
In fear, our captives struggle,
And sometimes,
They break free.
And then, we utter that awesome plea
That only spinning creatures know,
The unjustly beautiful:
'Come back to me!'
And sometimes,
They do not come back -
And webs decay -
And fall to earth -
And riding them,
We wonder:
'How dared I build this clinquant web?
Or drink to death
That fearless butterfly?'
We suppose:
'In the end, as it struggled,
I forgot myself,
And spun enormous rails of binding anchorage,
To keep it on the line;
I forgot the earth,
And now I've felt the bloated eyes of silent hunger,
Who lives in life and death,
And draws them both as slaves in chain
To tend its nature,
Which is the hunt and prey,
By night or blind,
Of crawling, flightless game.'
We panic:
'If I eat one maggot on the earth,
And my health is restored,
Will I remember then
The state I knew when first I flew?
What then, if my feet stay grounded?
For now I also know
That hunger waits
Beside great flying things,
And I fear the sky,
And I fear the trees,
And the web that builds inside my heart;
I fear it all,
And stay on earth,
And eat the dirt,
That looks most like
My brilliant mortal butterfly.'
Our terrors muster, sheer and stark:
'What if, by my nature's mark,
I am not born to eat the sky?'
The choice is yours:
Spin or die.
Jun 22, 2017
Jun 22, 2017 at 1:08 PM UTC
We are spiders that fly on silk
Each strand put out to snare
Some seemingly solid structure;
A branch we may build a web on,
Or the windshield of a moving car.
Our goal is a perfect circle,
The web that bears its own foundations -
The guarantee that we no longer have to glide,
When branches fall
Or whole trees begin to drift into the air.
With each cast we amputate
A single silken limb;
And lose a little of our weight.
We reduce and suffer,
But still we send great tracks of gossamer,
Like checkered see-through wings,
To search the sky;
How else could we capture flying things,
And drink their memories of flight?
We flew once or twice ourselves,
And friends that build on flimsy branches
Assure us
That flying is more beautiful
First hand.
But some of us believe
In eating flight;
For flight is life,
And when you eat life,
It dies,
And death is real,
And death wants to be alive.
So we try to build circles,
As we can think of nothing else,
That could bear the weight,
Of meals that teach invincible demise;
Of flies that we can drink eternally,
Who will tell us always,
That flight both lives and dies.
Occasionally, we catch the like -
Great butterflies like birds,
These guests we gladly drink for years,
That eat and grow besides us,
As banquets of prey
Fall fast on our deep-woven webs;
Enticed to suicide
By the net that's built from butterfly.
Sometimes, if we cannot build enough,
Then web and body and captive bug
Together are nudged,
By the demon eating life and death,
Whose name is silent hunger.
In fear, our captives struggle,
And sometimes,
They break free.
And then, we utter that awesome plea
That only spinning creatures know,
The unjustly beautiful:
'Come back to me!'
And sometimes,
They do not come back -
And webs decay -
And fall to earth -
And riding them,
We wonder:
'How dared I build this clinquant web?
Or drink to death
That fearless butterfly?'
We suppose:
'In the end, as it struggled,
I forgot myself,
And spun enormous rails of binding anchorage,
To keep it on the line;
I forgot the earth,
And now I've felt the bloated eyes of silent hunger,
Who lives in life and death,
And draws them both as slaves in chain
To tend its nature,
Which is the hunt and prey,
By night or blind,
Of crawling, flightless game.'
We panic:
'If I eat one maggot on the earth,
And my health is restored,
Will I remember then
The state I knew when first I flew?
What then, if my feet stay grounded?
For now I also know
That hunger waits
Beside great flying things,
And I fear the sky,
And I fear the trees,
And the web that builds inside my heart;
I fear it all,
And stay on earth,
And eat the dirt,
That looks most like
My brilliant mortal butterfly.'
Our terrors muster, sheer and stark:
'What if, by my nature's mark,
I am not born to eat the sky?'
The choice is yours:
Spin or die.
(A poem about wisdom's role in life and death)
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