Welcome to another Poetry Friday Poetry Peeps Adventure!
Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of September! Here’s the scoop: We’re wandering through Wallace Stevens’ “13 Different Ways of Looking…” at something. Maybe it’s not 13 ways – maybe it’s only seven. Maybe it’s not a blackbird or anything alive, but something inanimate. Whatever happens, your way of looking will be different than mine, and I’m here for it. Are you in? Good! You have a month to craft your creation and share it on September 27th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals.
My mother texted me the other morning, “Are you feeling Fall-ish?” It’s hard to miss the change this year. The “certain slant of light” seems to be more sharply tip-tilted. The cool of the morning is actually legitimately chilly – though it won’t last, of course. September traditionally burnishes the Western States sun-bronzed with a last heavy blast before the “mellow mists and fruitfulness” settles in by mid-October. Maybe because it’s supposed to be a La Niña year, the dry cold already feels closer. I’m certainly noticing my yard overrun with lesser goldfinches, eating every seed and berry that isn’t being stolen by the squirrels. Soon the weavers will be sheeting the trees with ginormous webs, scarfing down every last bite before it’s time for ballooning away the babies.
I used three snaps for my ekphrastic this month, as both Liz and I captured spider’s webs, which made me think of E.B. White, CHARLOTTE’S WEB, and the time of year of endings (Remember Robert Peck’s A Day No Pigs Would Die? Even there the slaughter is scheduled for autumn/early winter). I’ve been thinking about mythology and the Weavers who, in Greek and Roman myth, wove a person’s fate. From the Encyclopedia Britannica:
The poet Hesiod (8th century bc) personified them as three very old women who spun the threads of human destiny. Their names were Clotho (Spinner), Lachesis (Allotter), and Atropos (Inflexible). Clotho spun the “thread” of human fate, Lachesis dispensed it, and Atropos cut the thread (thus determining the individual’s moment of death). The Romans identified the Parcae, originally personifications of childbirth, with the three Greek Fates. The Roman goddesses were named Nona, Decuma, and Morta.
In this slightly reflective, melancholic frame of mind, my poem spun itself out of spider webs, touching point to point across a path, anchored invisibly to catch the ephemera of memory.
Of course, not every ekphrastic this month dealt with intangibles. Liz’s poem is here. Tricia’s poem is here. Cousin Mary Lee’s poem is here. Michelle K’s poem is here. Though she may not have realized that she was joining our challenge, Rose has two blue chairs, and the Rain City Librarian had her class do ekphrastic haiku this week! Cool! Denise’s poignant meditation is here. Linda B’s seasonal moment is here. Carol used a watercolor for her ekphrastic imagery. You might give Susan @ Chicken Spaghetti a cookie, since today she is rounding us up with a wealth of poetry. Thanks, Susan! Yet more Poetry Peeps may drift in from their own particular webs, so be sure and pop back for the full roundup later this weekend.
I also found a delightful poem about walking through a spiderweb that you may enjoy. (It’s definitely more enjoyable to read about this than to actually… do it…)
And perhaps Nikita Gill should have the last word today – a last brief reminder of the ephemeral nature of spider’s webs, seasons, and moods, in all the best ways:
Happy last gasp of August.
