Spider by Ruth Miller

No spider struggles to create
The beautiful. His tensile arc
Knows mathematics in the dark;
A Michael Angelo of air
Who weaves a theory that states
Ultimatums on a hair.

Born to the purple of his need
He has no unsolved problems. He
Suffers no dichotomy,
But wakes to work and works to kill;
Beauty empiric in his greed,
Perfection in a villain’s skill.

Ragblown summit of the ooze
Of soft warm mud that split and stirred-
I hold within my skull the word
Sealed and socketed; yet my hands
Fashion with artifice and ruse
Not wily web, but witless strands.

But when the poor cold corpse of words
Is laid upon its candled bier,
I, vindicate, will shed the tear
That falls like wax, and creep unheard
To weave in silence, grave and bowed,
The pure necessity – a shroud.