Mar27
One silken strand
For the last week my daughters (and therefore I) have been listening to E.B. White reading Trumpet of the Swan. Then I spent yesterday in Ithaca where White attended Cornell. It’s no wonder that today I feel inspired to post one of his poems: “Natural History,” written in a Toronto hotel room and addressed to his wife Katharine. The poet sees a spider and thinks of love — not such an implausible connection for this writer.
To me the poem’s form and subject seem perfectly suited. The predictable rhyme, the symmetry of the stanzas, the way each comes to a point with a metrically shorter concluding line, somehow create the effect of thread being lengthened and looped back, woven into a pattern — much like a web. The spider, easily seen as a predatory creature, appears here as a dependent one instead. This speaker is caught in love’s web himself, but still he takes the initiative:
The spider, dropping down from twig,
Unwinds a thread of her devising:
A thin, premeditated rig
To use in rising.And all the journey down through space,
In cool descent, and loyal-hearted,
She spins a ladder to the place
From which she started.Thus I, gone forth, as spiders do,
In spider’s web a truth discerning,
Attach one silken strand to you
For my returning.
(From Poems & Sketches of E.B. White)
Poetry Friday is hosted at The Drift Record today.
Thanks for sharing this, Janet!
We have the audiobook of Charlotte’s Web that is read by E.B. White. It also contains an essay about White and his work at the end that is very good. Here’s a link to my review of it—>http://hopeistheword.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/charlottes-web-audiobook/
Ah, even his poetry has that measured tread and cadence that informs his fiction. Lovely, lovely.
What a sweet love poem – I didn’t expect that ending for some reason. Thanks for sharing it and the beautiful photo.
I love the sentiment of this — the very sweet conclusion — and the rhythm, too. Lovely!
I love E.B. White — and this is a lovely poem. I think you’re right about the shortening of the lines in each stanza. I do love that sense of balance and symmetry.
Isn’t that lovely! I am embarrassed to confess I didn’t know White wrote poetry. Off to search for this book–thanks!