By Tony Halstead
A cunning little goblin,
I nimbly surf my net:
So agile on the fragile,
How clever can one get?
The web displays my genius:
Its source is quite divine.
I’m programmed so to do it,
Yet proud to call it mine.
Oh great the glinting gossamer,
Elastic, strong and smooth.
But when a snack becomes enmeshed,
Itself it cannot move.
Some folks think me ugly,
Which so fills me with woe;
Yet Mother once assured me:
“You’re the prettiest thing I know!”
My many legs negotiate
Transparent, sticky strands.
Like some nightmarish acrobat,
Those limbs become my hands!
I have never once felt dizzy As I build my trap aloft. My balance is miraculous, For I’ve never once dropped off!
I skip along the gossamer
Like some gymnastic great.
Why I never get entangled.
I can only speculate.
Lines of glistening light I spin,
That ripple in the wind.
The breeze and I we have a deal:
He blows my meals right in!
My poison is amazing:
It turns my prey to mush.
This avoids hard chewing
As insects are dead tough!
“Always wrap yer lunch up”,
Dad would grunt and say.
“Cos if it’s in a parcel neat,
It don’t get in the way”.
I have a hundred sisters.
One is called Annette.
She lost an eye the other day,
But has five others yet!
My spinnerets are in my rear:
Not a pleasant place, for
When the wind gusts backwards,
The strands blow in my face!
On moonlit nights when all is still
I make my web a harp.
I pluck arachnid melodies
Which decorate the dark.
Knit one pearl two,
The lines are sewn so thin
How delicate my network:
I am the King of Spin!
Gateway Church Ashford, is a church in Ashford, Kent, and is part of the New Frontiers movement and within the Catalyst Network sphere.
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