Re: careful....

• Messages sorted by: [ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ]
• Next message: J J R: "Re: careful...."
• Previous message: WILL HOCHMAN: "Re: careful...."
• Maybe in reply to: Scottie Bowman: "careful...."
• Next in thread: J J R: "Re: careful...."

Will said that he:

> would like to play with senses of spider (with
> all online web punning intended!) by offering up one of my favorite poems
> by Walt Whitman

... and includes the lovely Whitman poem.  One of my favorite poems, a
fraternal-twin (since we're talking about twins occasionally) to what Will
offers is by E.B. White, speaking to his wife from a faraway hotel room.
It's a poem that has always haunted me, and I confess that as far as I
know, it has nothing to do with Salinger, but everything to do with the
beauty of words compressed delicately and precisely, with that little
left-hook punch at the end of each stanza:


	Natural History

	The spider, dropping down from twig,
	Unwinds a thread of his devising:
	A thin, premeditated rig
	To use in rising.

	And all the journey down through space,
	In cool descent, and loyal-hearted,
	He builds a ladder to the place
	From which he started.

	Thus I, gone forth, as spiders do,
	In spider's web a truth discerning,
	Attach one silken strand to you
	For my returning.

				--E.B. White


--tim o'connor

• Next message: J J R: "Re: careful...."
• Previous message: WILL HOCHMAN: "Re: careful...."
• Maybe in reply to: Scottie Bowman: "careful...."
• Next in thread: J J R: "Re: careful...."