2005/saturday.wpd

Saturday morning,
we sit on the sofa. I am sick,
your paper rattles in my head
as you read the obituaries.
Elvis Skittles, age 72.
I study the spider web
I have been contemplating
since I sat down.
It hangs from the t.v. cable
spanning the yard.
The foggy morning
offers protective coloration.
It should be said the
other way around
I know,
but I’ve not yet
figured out how.
(Hence the study,
hence the contemplation.) (??Not a true statement)
The pepper tree’s red berries
waiting to warm in the sun,
they’re hoping will come.

I see the web blow just slightly
in the breeze.
A portion of it missing,
an imperfect jagged wedge that
makes it difficult to discern
where the perimeter was.
Tilting my head I see the web
extends much lower than I thought
and is much more badly damaged
that it appeared.
I am weary of this whole pursuit
which seems to be taking me
no where I want to go.

Usually the exit is a surprise.
I think that is what
makes the enterprise compelling.
Decades ago I listened
to an older poet speak,
about how a poet
might make a poem from
watching a bug.
I think I thought it
a simple-minded pursuit.

But here I sit trying
to shape something from a web
that the spider has left,
broken, abandoned
failing.

I lied when I
implied,
no out right said
that the hence and
study and contemplation
hooked together.
I was just watching
the web,
it’s what I do.
And wanted to say
something abut
it.
Preferably something
smart,
glistening like the web
must be in the emerging
sun.
A phrase comes
I follow
to see where it
takes me.
Today I’m sick
and committed a writer’s
most treacherous act
of bending the simple
truth to see if I can
make something of
it, as though it weren’t
enough in itself.
Sometimes I get
uneasy not knowing
where I’m going
or even where I am
and look for an easy
way.
My ankle caught
in a clever trap
dragging it behind
me.

1/22/05