Darling House Window, Santa Cruz
Photo by Katy Brown
HOW DOES A SPIDER KNOW
how to pull silk from her spinnerets, how
to weave the ancient secret of crossbeams
and guywires, symmetrical wheels of needles
and pins to hold her in a morning bed
of diamonds? How does a pigeon know
how to home, know where her pinpoint
of a nest box is over hundreds of miles, know
how to thread her way back around
trees and hills and rivers of long, thin,
silvery sunlight? How do I know
how to trust you again, how to rebuild
our web, find the nest box, sew our way home
after we've torn dark holes in the silk
of our marriage? And how does a poem know
how to build a web of its own? How does it
weave its way around trees and hills and rivers
and not be blinded by all that silvery sunlight?
how to pull silk from her spinnerets, how
to weave the ancient secret of crossbeams
and guywires, symmetrical wheels of needles
and pins to hold her in a morning bed
of diamonds? How does a pigeon know
how to home, know where her pinpoint
of a nest box is over hundreds of miles, know
how to thread her way back around
trees and hills and rivers of long, thin,
silvery sunlight? How do I know
how to trust you again, how to rebuild
our web, find the nest box, sew our way home
after we've torn dark holes in the silk
of our marriage? And how does a poem know
how to build a web of its own? How does it
weave its way around trees and hills and rivers
and not be blinded by all that silvery sunlight?
—Kathy Kieth, Pollock Pines
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—Medusa