First, a big thank-you to Dylan-James in New Orleans, who sent me a CD he burned from his recording of the Song Dogs at Muddy Waters in December of 1988. Which is pretty cool in and of itself, but the fact that this was burned from a cassette he just the other day found in a box that had been under water for two weeks after Katrina? Awesome in the true sense of the word. Today's poem is dedicated to Dylan James and "the Class of 1985-89, Oak Street School of Rock & Roll." Dylan-James and the Song Dogs were there. Were you? (All hail the mighty cassette! yes, it was a TDK) Second, a little nature tale and a poem: Today I was yanking some weeds in the garden and saw a bright red spot moving around near where I was working. Then I saw that the bright red spot was shaped sort of like two triangles connected at the points, one upside down on top of the other. And...it was attached to a shiny black abdomen with a head and eight legs.... yikes. So I stopped pulling weeds...thought about killing the spider, then realized it was tiny, which meant that it wouldn't have much venom, and that it was a baby, which meant that there were probably many more in the vicinity....so I decided NOT to kill it. Why bother? And what if the mother saw me do it?? Besides it wasn't in the house--just out in the garden. That turf belongs to the spiders is what I figured. In any case, it certainly belongs to them now. I am not going back out there! Let them live in peace, say I. But. If I see one o' them nasty sumbitches in the house, forget it. It's a goner. So, anyways, here is a poem from Walt Whitman. A Noiseless Patient Spider A noiseless patient spider, I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. And you, O my soul where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O O my soul. ... and of course how could we forget: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCzdXuAb79U