Ask A Spider

Spider Woman (2005)
Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010)
~ famous for her giant sculptures Spider & Maman ~
but I think my favorite is this red Spider Woman

What are the odds that I would discover
two amazing spider poems,
two days in a row?!?
Which is your favorite?

Snow Country Weavers

A time to tell you things are well.
Birds flew south a year ago.
One returned, a blue-wing teal
wild with news of his mother’s love.
Mention me to friends. Say
Wolves are dying at my door,
the winter drives them from their meat.
Say this: say in my mind
I saw your spiders weaving threads
to bandage up the day. And more,
those webs were filled with words
that tumbled meaning into wind.

James Welch (1940 – 2003)
from his book Riding the Earthboy


Spider

All of my pain is a spider
I’ve learned not to crush
with the heel of my shoe

but to guide with a page
of my journal
into an empty glass.

I ask questions about
its life, its purpose
as I walk careful

out to the garden and rest
it down on the earth.
My pain—how happy
it is to leave me
whenever I treat it
kind.

Andrea Gibson (1975 – 2025)
from Begin Where You Are:
The Colorado Poets Laureate Anthology