The Dependencies

This morning, between two branches of a tree

Beside the door, epeira once again

Has spun and signed his tapestry and trap.

I test his early-warning system and

It works, he scrambles forth in sable with

The yellow hieroglyph that no one knows

The meaning of. And I remember now

How yesterday at dusk the nighthawks came

Back as they do about this time each year,

Grey squadrons with the slashes white on wings

Cruising for bugs beneath the bellied cloud.

Now soon the monarchs will be drifting south,

And then the geese will go, and then one day

The little garden birds will not be here.

See how many leaves already have

Withered and turned; a few have fallen, too.

Change is continuous on the seamless web,

Yet moments come like this one, when you feel

Upon your heart a signal to attend

The definite announcement of an end

Where one thing ceases and another starts;

When like the spider waiting on the web

You know the intricate dependencies

Spreading in secret through the fabric vast

Of heaven and earth, sending their messages

Ciphered in chemistry to all the kinds,

The whisper down the bloodstream: it is time.

PoetryMERTONThomas Merton, a/k/a Fr. Mary Louis Merton, O.C.S.O, a member of the monastic community of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, in Trappist, Kentucky. The initials O.C.S.O stand for "Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance," a monastic order of Roman Catholic men and women commonly known as "Trappists." Merton died in Bangkok, December 10, 1968, while attending an international conference on East-West MonasticDialogue.ALBRECHT VAN HALLERAlbrecht van Haller, Swiss physiologist, 1708-1777. Credited with writing the first standard physiology textbook.EPEIRAEpeira, [Greek: epi, "upon," and eiros, "wool"] a genus of spiders typical of the family Epiridæ. Epeira diadema is the typical garden spider.Howard Nemerov was born on February 29th, 1920 in New York. He died of cancer at his home in University City, Missouri on July 5th 1991.