Winter Rite For A Dead Spider - A Quarantine Dirge Poem by Warren Falcon

for Jane Mead

'How can we cleanse ourselves -- what rites? ' - Sophocles, Oedipus the King


what butoh it walks
leg by
leg by
leg by
leg by
leg by
leg by
by leg
by leg to what purpose there on the plasticine
stall floor/wall not sure but am sure that the
dead flies of winter go uneaten/unsucked

Spider first days here I spoke to every
morning from the john wondering at its
slow movements for 3 days till 4th its
legs curl tuck tightly beneath its carapace
I blow at it from the cold seat - bunched
draws round my colder ankles it budges
not at all realize it is deceased legs uniformly
creased a beauty to see first time ever've
felt remorse for a bug


so lift Spider up with toilet paper so soft
double ply-ed solemnly march a stilled
wind she, an it no longer, on bier so soft
softly into still harder winter snow and
darker woods Middle-March flip flops
no socks slow going find a rock up near
the woodshed so place Spider there with
oddest prayer ever in my life but Lord
Buddha helps - his ' all sentient beings'
et-sweet-cetera etcetera que sera sera

so perform brief bone chill rites then slide down
the path patch to my ground floor entrance to hot
shower then to Hopkins' poem - The Windhover
the more meaningful than ever for its

'dappled-dawn-drawn' things or rather
substituted or addendum-ed pray ponder
'threaded-sewn-moaned' things strangely
mourned actual tears born no doubt of
projections upon small cringes majestically
formed objectively perceived from secret
and sightless spaces suspended cocooned
in darkness or once in close woods strung
pearled between limbs and trunks ferns
which freakt my face when August-last
stumbled in marsh's humid stagger thickets
face-first into a massive web the sudden

grand mal-like seizure-like slaps scrape-face-eyelids
forehead-pate monstrous poison fears from not so
small a-miracle-maker webber's tales spindled from
its self from within to without such tattle rattle click
no ears human to hear little feet tight-walking filament
filigrees faint but so very there


spun





in





thin





air