Spider

By Tippana Ruthwik Reddy

A limb extends,

Thin as thought.

Another.

Another.

A shifting blur —

No, smaller still.

In moments slips,

This absurd minute.

A ripple in the glass – this insignificance –

On threads too thin – to bear it all.

Pulls the sky – like it pulls my own

Fragile limbs - its obscure purpose –

To what end to whisper

In seamless gale.

Its path is nonsense,

Yet it weaves – Always weaving

What compels — this private law?

A conviction too — big to fathom?

Do you see me? A thing?

How strange that I—

A barely supposed reason.

As if to mock - the inertial limits,

Why bother to observe?

What I cannot comprehend?

Such clouded doubt - In such quiet labour.

Something shifts— in still air.

No more than a trembling thread,

A ghost folds at dusk, as I crawl away

Like silence follows a vanishing flame,

I do not see it.

I only feel it,

A sharpened outline – a dissolving muddle

The architect of nothing and

Nothing more.

By Tippana Ruthwik Reddy