Love

Love

Fragile as a spider's web

Hanging in space

Between tall grasses,

It is torn again and again.

A passing dog

Or simply the wind can do it.

Several times a day

I gather myself together

And spin it again.

Spiders are patient weavers.

They never give up.

And who knows

What keeps them at it?

Hunger, no doubt,

And hope.

May Sarton

fr. Halfway To Silence

“Several times a day/I gather myself together/And spin it again.” The spiderweb as a metaphor for the fragility of love is a clear example of the practical usefulness of poetry. To have this metaphor show a web as both a work of beauty and a necessity; an expression of hunger and  hope, and how it requires daily, patient attention and repair, clearly shows me what love is  - not a falling into, like an inevitable accident, or a chemistry, like an inevitable combustion, or a fever, like an inavoidable illness, but a patient, moment by moment paying attention. An acceptance of damage, injury, and luck (bad and good). A commitment to starting over and over, to beginning anew  - every day.

Patience, that's love. Not giving up, that's love.

The web seems fragile, but as you no doubt remember, spider silk is stronger than steel.

The Spider's Web (A Natural History)

Roeselien Raimond

The Spider's Web

(A Natural History)

The spider, dropping down from twig,
Unfolds a plan of her devising,
A thin premeditated rig
To use in rising.


And all that journey down through space,
In cool descent and loyal hearted,
She spins a ladder to the place
From where she started.


Thus I, gone forth as spiders do
In spider’s web a truth discerning,
Attach one silken thread to you
For my returning.



E.B. White

I’ve been reading “Charlotte’s Web” to my son, and we’ve come to that chapter where Dr. Dorian discusses with Fern’s mother whether he believes that the spider could have written the words in her web. He shrugs, “When the words appeared, everyone said they were a miracle. But nobody pointed out that the web itself was a miracle.” Gosh, I love that. Isn’t that true? It calls to mind that line by cummings “around me surges a miracle of unceasing/birth and glory and death and resurrection”. Little everyday mysteries and magic, and us wading through them, unheeding. We wonder if there’s anything to live for while beside us a dandelion pushes through a crack in the cement. We despair of taking another breath while the trees around us drink in sunshine and exhale oxygen. Miracles. Shouldn’t these lead us back to where we started from? Shouldn’t they be, as they are for the spider, useful to us for rising? 

( I’ve been away for a bit, and I’m away again soon, so leave-taking is on my mind. This poem is for Pablo, and for the invisible threads that connect us no matter where we are, because these are miraculous too.)