December of 2017, I found myself rummaging through the aisles of 2nd & Charles when a certain book caught my eye: Poetry to Calm Your Soul By Mimi Khalvati. In it was a collection of modern and classic poetry, all of which were somehow connected. I would like to share a poem I found exceptionally beautiful. I hope you cherish it as I have for almost a year of my life.
A noiseless patient spider
A noiseless patient spider,
I marked where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Marked how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launched 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
spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be formed, till the ductile
anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O
my soul.
Walt Whitman
When I first read this poem, it seemed silly to me. What does a spider have to do with our souls? Then, something clicked. This poem is not just about some lonely and pathetic spider. It’s about the most tricky part of life: the start.
In his poem, Walt Whitman describes a spider trying to figure out where to position the first thread of its web. The spider tries over and over again, but the thread never catches or holds onto something. Whitman connects this to our souls. We endlessly try to put ourselves out in the world, hoping we will stick to something, but we don’t always do. That is the hardest part of life.
Whitman describes our souls as detached and wandering. We wait to form something from nothing. But, when our souls finally stick to something, we begin to explore. We learn new things. Life becomes a little easier.
I know this poem could mean a lot of different things, but, personally, I believe Whitman is trying to tell us that life is about making connections; however, there is nothing wrong with a lost connection. In fact, most of the connections we make will be lost. This is life. I guess we aren’t so different from a spider after all.
