Connections
For the late John Ratcliffe, to help give peace and comfort to David Ratcliffe, freinds and family. A rambling verse written as it flowed, I hope its OK… As can probably be guessed the connections theme plays on the internet, and how it connects those of us who otherwise never would know each other, and the positives that brings… The Blackwater Poetry Group on Facebook is from where I know his father David and his writings…
The spider weave from leave to branch
That links to branch via trunk of tree
That links to earth through roots to soil
That through our feet links you and me…
We walk on unaware
That each step we take, as our feet fall
Sends a message to other feet to root to trunk
To leaf, to web, to spider from us all.
We say we don’t talk to spiders…
Why should we, what would we say?
What have you seen there hanging around
What sort of fly did you eat today?
The spider speaks not to us
A giant shadow on the paths below
Whose business it could not comprehend
For whom necessary indifference it seems to show…
Until it glides down,
Floating on silk,lands on our hair…
Walks with is the path of life
Us all knowing , being unaware…
We walked with a spider today
As we went shopping in the mall
In the pub we went for a pint with our pals
Somewhere, somehow parted company in the fall
Of the spider from our jacket it crawled down
Maybe intentional, maybe accidental, incidents of chance event
Sentient beings both in our own world
Which we go separate fates content
The world itself and people too
Being like the person and the fly
Linked by vibrations of our lives
Through roots to leaves that wave in the sky
Blown by the passing breeze
That sends the chill over our faces
That we pull scarves across to keep warm
As we must do in these wintry places…
This binary web that links us all
Who otherwise never would meet
Links our hands, through keyboards and fingers
To our hearts, as we walk down the street
About our own business in the modern world
Yet we feel each others joy and pain,
We feel their loss, sometimes comfort give
Yet, reality with is shall remain…
Let us be glad of the connections
Through wire strands and fingers between ye and I
Not forgetting the connections with the earth
Through the tree, to leaf, so spider eating his fly
For breakfast, who wonders why
In verses like here he is forgot
The connection with spider celebrated…
He too is nature, is he not?
The answer to that I cannot give
I know not all, I am put a poet who writes
The spider an animal who kills to live
The fly who to live fights…
I have more things on my mind today
Than connections to spider and flies through trunks of trees
As rambling verse seeks comfort to give
To a distant parent who for his son grieves,
The tears that fall to earth
Join the waters in the soil
That join the rivers, falls and pools
The oceans that stretch beyond the sight of eye
That evaporate under searing sun
Making clouds, and winds that blow on our face
Rustling leaves, blowing spiders as we walk beneath trees
Myriad of connections in this place
This rock that we call home for a while
Should heaven prove true for you and me
We shall meet each other, and the loved ones we have lost
Together for eternity
Let us be now like the fisherman
Whose catch in his net are our good times in life
Be happy for the haul that came ashore
Rue not the shoal swam away to spite the strife
Of casting the net:
To do so it is to breath
That’s life itself, unknown connections…
It can be both kind and cruel indeed.