i was smoking on my porch when i saw the spider weaving something between the buttress and the black cable. it worked industriously, and the gauzy lines shimmered with morbid promise. webs like this are easy to destroy, but for the insect ensnared who never does escape. i left it anyway, knowing a strong wind or rain would do the trick just as well.
perhaps it’s this fleetingness that keeps me awake lately. the sense that nothing is quite settled, and everything is slipping away rapidly around me, like the last days of summer. perhaps it’s this impermanence that taught my body to keep everything, to hold heavy and strong against the earth, fearing that i too might pass, unnoticed.
A Ritual to Read to Each Other, William Stafford
If you don’t know the kind of person I am
and I don’t know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.
And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail,
but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider–
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give–yes or no, or maybe–
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
