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Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry: Garden Spider
Edited and introduced by Wesley McNair, Maine Poet Laureate
Richard Foerster is the author of six collections of poetry and lives in Cape Neddick. In his poem he observes the work of an orbweaver, finding it a source of wonder and admiration.
Garden Spider by Richard Foerster
Argiope bruennichiAn orbweaver, adrift among the hosta?s spent stalks, black and brilliant-banded gold, dead-center in a mist of silks and two zigzag vertical rays strung as luminous warning to any flying bird, hoveredlast evening, head earthward, her legs poised to set the web trembling to a blur each time I crouched to watch, spell-bound and snared with the thought that here?s the perfect fretwork to grace a backyard garden. Nowthis morning I see she?s consumed each filament, digested the indispensible proteins to respin the entire designsomewhere away from my quisitive gaze. What must I admire, left with empty space: an unbending mindfixed on private workings, or the way the very fabric of a world can be chewed up for weaving again?
Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 2002 by Richard Foerster. Reprinted from Double Going, BOA Editions, Ltd., 2005, by permission of Richard Foerster. Questions about submitting to Take Heart may be directed to David Turner, Special Assistant to the Maine Poet Laureate, at poetlaureate@mainewriters.org or 207-228-8263.