Sherry Chandler » Poem with Spider
Poem with Spider
1. To live, to lie awake
under scarred plaster
while ice is forming over the earth
at an hour when nothing can be done
to further any decision
to know the composing of the thread
inside the spider’s body
first atoms of the web
visible tomorrow
to feel the fiery future
of every matchstick in the kitchen
Nothing can be done
but by inches. I write out my life
hour by hour, word by word
gazing into the anger of old women on the bus
numbering the striations
of air inside the ice cube
imagining the existence
of something uncreated
this poem
our lives
— from Adrienne Rich, “Incipience,” Diving into the Wreck (Norton, 1973)
This spider is not a web-builder, of course, but one of the roaming, hunting variety that grow so big and scary.
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