DEDICATIONS, PLEDGES, COMMITMENTS. For the past. For my own path. For surprises. For mistakes that worked so well. For tomorrow if I'm there. For the next real thing. Then for carrying it all through whatever is necessary. For following the little god who speaks only to me. --William Stafford

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Behold the Jumping Spider

CIRCLE OF BEING

"Come into my parlor," said the spider...


Knowing how these things happen, she
drops a lifeline, and carpets the bare floor
of her parlor with a fine gauze
of her own making. Sometimes,

she lies in wait all morning for
her breakfast, the bacon and eggs,
the warm croissants and jam of flies.
Knowing these things must happen

before the dusty zodiacal light of dusk,
the flies forgive her broken promise
of a quick death. She is so beautiful,
with her eight hydraulic limbs, her colors,

her droll little four-eyed face,
her chelicerae, as she leaps forward
and forward into one long
anointed circle of being.

2 comments:

Deb said...

Love it, Joyce. That last stanza is especially fabulous. The circling forward, the "droll". AND lovelovelove hydronic limbs. So expressive!

yay for spider poems!!!

Kay Cooke said...

I agree wholeheartedly with Deb - exquisite poetry Joyce!

About Me

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1. In dreams I am often young and thin with long blond hair. 2. In real life I am no longer young, or thin, or blonde. 3. My back hurts. 4. I hate to sleep alone. (Fortunately I don't have to!) 5. My great grandfather had 2 wives at once. 6. I wish I had more self-discipline. (I was once fired from a teaching position in a private school because they said I was "too unstructured and undisciplined." --Who, me??? Naaaahhh....) 7. I do not blame my parents for this. Once, at a parent-teacher conference, the teacher told me my little boy was "spacey." We ALL are, I told her. The whole fan damily is spacey. She thought I was kidding. I wasn't. 8. I used to travel with a theater reperatory company. My parents weren't happy about this. 9. My mother was afraid that I would run off and paint flowers on my cheeks and live in a commune, and grow vegetables. I once smoked pot. ONE TIME. 10. I don't drink or smoke. (Or swear, much. Well, I drink milk, and water, and orange juice, and stuff. Cocoa. I love Pepsi.) 11. Most of my friends are invisible. 12. I am a poet and a writer. All of my writing on these pages is copyrighted. Borrowing (without acknowledgment) is a sin.