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When like the
spider waiting on the web
You know the intricate dependencies …. Howard Nemerov,
The Dependencies
Do I use
them well, moments I have shared
with creatures that dined with me? Not Kodiac bears
or pangolins, dugongs or dinosaurs -
nothing exotic, only a common bird
bathing in spite of me, heedless of men,
heedless of morning moving into night,
picking at life, its spotted plumage wet
from a puddle newly made. I search in vain
for sounds that would bridge the silent gulf between
starling and man, but it suffices to feel
our mutual awareness, to sit still
in perfect harmony, thankful for the thin
covering of trust. She knows I won't intrude
on her ablutions, and my laissez-faire
adds to the sum of things, so that we share
a wordless pact we've vaguely understood.
God notes the sparrow's fall, believers say,
but in our garden we can sit at ease
blind to the triumphs and the tragedies
breaking around us. In a curious way,
minutiae change the world beyond our seeing;
the mole erecting mountains in the soil
or the spider by the window lost in the toil
of weaving death - these things affect our being
infinitesimally. Still I stare
ignorant of surprises that are waiting
a starling's cry away. Here am I sitting
watching a one-act play in open air.
How can I know in what mysterious way
my friendship blossoms in the starling's breast
so that, in time, it might confide my trust
to birds a million years beyond my day?
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