Nocturnal Weavings

Misanthropic native Washingtonian late of Salisbury, NC, displaced to Raleigh post-graduation. Currently working as proofreader for ad agency in the greater Raleigh-Durham area. Designs of world domination, starting with the Internet. Indignant AND chronically offensive: always a winning combination. Favors sentence fragments; semicolons. Talented. Predictable. Nerd.

"It's a miserable inheritance," said Wilbur, gloomily. He was sad because his new friend was so bloodthirsty.

"Yes, it is," agreed Charlotte. "But I can't help it. I don't know how the first spider in the early days of the world happened to think up this fancy idea of spinning a web, but she did, and it was clever of her, too. And since then, all of us spiders have had to work the same trick. It's not a bad pitch, on the whole."

"It's cruel," replied Wilbur, who did not intend to be argued out of his position.

"Well, you can't talk," said Charlotte. "You have your meals brought to you in a pail. Nobody feeds me. I have to get my own living. I live by my wits. I have to be sharp and clever, lest I go hungry. I have to think things out, catch what I can, take what comes. And it just so happens, my friend, that what comes is flies and insects and bugs. And furthermore," said Charlotte, shaking one of her legs, "do you realize that if I didn't catch bugs and eat them, bugs would increase and multiply and get so numerous that they'd destroy the earth, wipe out everything?"

"Really?" said Wilbur. "I wouldn't want that to happen. Perhaps your web is a good thing after all."

From Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White
(pp. 39-40, Harper and Row hardback)

---
The Chalice of a Leaf
by trademarkwinter

I see, lately,
my spider has been sad,
bathed in moon-shiver
(not that I, delirious moth,
child too of this raucous night,
would say that she is mine) no,
but we two are one in our
precious longing
our sisterhood born
of love for a moon
too high
too cold

If only together,
fourteen little legs and arms
could cast aside the luna's cloak
of mutual desire, let air rush
to lungs timid and brazen both
and sometimes I do think,
(though I make no pretensions
of thinking deeper than
the chalice of a leaf)
the slipping hem of this garment
slights you greatest,

for a moth's love is but
dappled panic, all caprice
and a cloud of powder,
while the spider's
is the most sultry geometry,
the cupping veil around a cheek
that will not stay.

I am wrenched from this
perch astride happiness
to see your web strung
for the moon's subtle fingers
to ply your hard-wrought lace;
they slip through
elude all cleverness, and yet
cast the sweetest, dulcet glaze
on one so intricate already
that to strive for the moon
seems only fitting.
Though hectic light may sate me,

The spider drinks a finer wine
and seeks a greater grail
to put it in,
though the search, my dear Arachne,
may give your mouth a thirsting flavor
may leave your fingers numb with spinning.
---

A Noiseless Patient Spider
Walt Whitman

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood, isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my Soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my Soul.