Spider Woman

Hear an audio version of this piece Spider Woman I

An engraving of an old woman sitting in tall grass, reaching toward a spider in its web

for Betty Rothenberger, Historian of the Mystery School

Every moon the Spider Woman
Runs away with it all:
The insight and the half-lies,
The jokes and testimonies,
The raw and burnt and half-baked,
Takes it all
To her cave in the West.

For weeks she chews and chews,
Takes notes, mumbles, ponders,
Rewinds the tape in dark hours.

Then, done, holding it folded
Neatly in herself, returns and
Waits for the signal
To shake it out.

Ooohs and ahhhs!
This is what was,
Where we were!

Here we stalled or came through,
Here we saw no link,
In this place it went light or green!

Again, with so little fuss,
She's found the pattern in our patches
And quilted us.

Spider Woman II

There's a love in the mimic urge
That nurses on the breath and surge
Of the original, imbibes its live
Patterns, doubles them, and thrives.

Illuminate your spider's web, you get
Behind it, another resonating net
Of shadow that can catch spirit
Like a smoking mirror. Hear it?