Spider and Worm

Delicately delicate, she suspends it in space,

and spins from her scuttle this air-strewn lace.

Over and over and over again she splices

spidery substance with spot-on slashes

wider and wider through space/time she dashes.

So silvery it shines in morning light

inspiring this human with her shimmering site.

 

Meanwhile down way down in earthen ground

wiggly worm weaves his way around,

dirty and grubby and stubby and slow

crawling and hauling his humus so low.

He don't see no nothin'; he just go and go

through sludgy mud and slimy cruds

in soils he toils, 'til shovel turns over his boring drudge.

These two together are wild working partisans:

the annelid laborer and this arachnid artisan.

Master worm slung low, Madame spider spinning high,

dug in dirty and low and strung up in airy high,

until both annelid and arachnid do wear out and expire.

The earth and the sky turn lower and higher.

 

Glass Chimera

Crawling onto the sands of Time

If I had a pair of ragged claws
scuttling through surf-tossed sands,
I'd crawl up on this shellshorn beach.
I'd raise my thorny head
to see what I could see
to survey this continental conglomerate
that rises before me
like something big and fixed in time.
Whatever this is,
it is not akin to my ocean, no,
not in constant motion,
but something solid is it
something accumulated in time
something sedimented
into one big thing:

If I could drag me crusty self
upon that stony shore
I would find me windblown
wood grown structure there to rest
beneath its boney covering crest
and call meself at home.

But wait! What's this?
A thorny beast arrests me quest!
This spiny splort to thwart my sport!
Who goes there?

Declare yourself if ye be man or beast!
Shucks. 'T'was what I wanted least,
to share me beach with such a quilly guy,
to see me thorny self within his eye.
Pshaw! to put it politely,
'though I could use another word,
one that you have prob'ly heard.

Glass Chimera