To a Spider

In tribute to Robbie Burns, who would have done it much better.

While jogging home from my run today,

I saw some brambles on the way,

And blackberries shining in the sun,

Dark, ripe and ready.

Five I picked, then I dropped one,

And took another, from much higher,

And saw I had destroyed your web,

Stretched craftily across the briar.

And then I went and out you came

From beneath your watching bramble leaf,

And saw the mess made of your well-spun trap,

By a clumsy-handed blackberry thief.

A few hours’ work, and skilled work too,

None of your mindless labouring.

But a marvel of filigree,

All gone.  All gone.

Today no flies, mosquitoes, midges or moths

Or gnats on the table for tea!

I lost two pages of text

On my computer yesterday.

I ranted and I blamed

Keyboard, computer and much more,

Everything in fact but me!

So events have upturned once again

The best laid schemes of spiders and men.

I was to blame for my pages lost,

But your mangled web was not your fault.

Yet calmly you began the job,

As I munched blackberries down the lane,

And little by little, hour by hour,

You quietly span it back again.

September 2000