A Poem for a Thursday #62

Photo by Frances Gunn on Unsplash

Charlotte’s Web, by E. B. White, is a wonderful children’s book. Who can ever forget Wilbur, Charlotte, and Templeton? White was also an essayist who wrote for The New Yorker for fifty years. He wrote this poem for his wife, Katherine, and sent it to her in a letter.

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 builds 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.


Natural History
E. B. White

Here is a poem from Brona.