All it takes are two spinners
to collect the unsuspecting flotsam
of long summer nights.
Apart in the same yard
we cast our respective filaments–
some to control, some to set free,
some in love, some from death itself.
Silver on dark,
I braid a net to enhance my loves
you–a snare for your gossamer schemes.
I follow impulse with fiber-like freedom,
the warp of odd honesty.
You spin charm like crazy
and admire a dead collection.
Snared in your own beguiles,
you measure success
by the material bodies around you.
I, by the spirits who sing
spinning songs
beyond our entrapments.
You connive and hatch.
I invent or enhance.
My designs, your makeshift.
My resolution, your madness.
My labyrinth, your skeletons.
Keep your intrigues to yourself,
the nightly feedings that have
kept you alive and dead for so long.
Though we may die this winter,
we have chosen then
and I shan’t be catching you later.
Alone now, I spin quite free
far from your threadbare joy.
I have been victim enough
to know the Sisyphus pangs
of starting each arc over.
Honest now, I cannot spin for you
and you are too busy with
your morning morgue
to taste of mercy or honour.
Centered, I will be fine in the autumn sun.
Improved, I will continue my passion
to teach and let go.
True, I shall weave like this, alone forever.
………………………………….
A poem about limits and limitations, contrasting lives, styles, and values. ‘Never the twain shall bond.’ A credo of honestly-earned experience. (Inspired by Dead and Gone–two large spiders who once took up residence on the garden shed and Frost’s poem “Design”.)