September 17: New Poem, Tired Day, Maybe Cartoon

Below is the poem I promised you yesterday.  I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.  I would call it an autumn poem, full of the kinds of thoughts a person thinks in mid to late September.  In some ways, it's about getting old and dying.  In some ways, it's about the change in seasons, the movement from the heat of summer to the cool of fall.  Anyway, it's done, and I'm happy with it.

It has been a tired kind of Saturday.  All day, I've felt like I could crawl back to bed and sleep for about thirteen more hours.  My daughter is feeling the same way.  I just dropped her off at her dance class, and, on the drive into town, she fell asleep.  I lay odds she's going to be quite crabby when I pick her up.  I think it has something to do with the weather, shift in seasons, school, and hormones (for her).  I just hope I can stay awake through Lawrence Welk tonight.

I haven't had a chance to draw a new cartoon today.  If I do, I'll post it later this evening. 

For the time being, you're going to have to be satisfied with a small, poetic offering from Saint Marty.

Spiderweb in Fall

I sit at my desk, watch a spider
Spin a web in the window's corner.
Thin filaments, like spun sugar or glass,
Fracture the blue of autumn,
Make it waver, pulse in the sun,
As if someone is adjusting the day,
Its vertical and horizontal holds,
Trying to make maple, grass, cloud
Clearer, crisper, more definite.
The spider works fast, scrambles
Back and forth, up and down,
Frantic to complete its silken trap
At the edge of this reality.
I wonder why the spider rushes,
If it is trying to finish before
Something precious slips
Out of reach of its fragile girders.
Maybe it senses a storm
Of gnats, a weather front of food,
Blowing in from the nearby raspberry
Bushes, a last summer feast
Before frost and ice rob
The universe of survival.
Or maybe it's something more
Metaphysical, an urge to create
A map of its last moments, each thread,
A reminder of those July days
When moths were abundant as pollen,
Those August nights when fireflies
Winked on and off in the dark,
Like an "Open" sign in a diner window
After bars close and hunger takes over.