Posted by Richard on  UTC 2020-11-05 08:12

Today the Swiss winter is earnestly signalling its arrival, tapping the newly-bare twigs on the windowpanes. The small creatures of the chilling world outside are venturing into the warm but perilous habitations of humans in search of a safe place to spend the winter.

One of these, a tiny spider, a seasonal golden-brown, wandered down the screen of my monitor this morning and paused for a while, showing interest, perhaps, in its gentle warmth.

Robert Frost's poem 'A Considerable Speck (Microscopic)' came to mind, a poem from his highly regarded collection A Witness Tree from 1942 (in the section 'Time Out', p. 57).

A Considerable Speck (Microscopic)

Robert Frost (1874-1963), 1942.

A speck that would have been beneath my sight

1

On any but a paper sheet so white

 

Set off across what I had written there.

3

And I had idly poised my pen in air

 

To stop it with a period of ink

5

When something strange about it made me think.

 

This was no dust speck by my breathing blown,

7

But unmistakably a living mite

 

With inclinations it could call its own.

9

It paused as with suspicion of my pen,

 

And then came racing wildly on again

11

To where my manuscript was not yet dry;

 

Then paused again and either drank or smelt—

13

With loathing, for again it turned to fly.

 

Plainly with an intelligence I dealt.

15

It seemed too tiny to have room for feet,

 

Yet must have had a set of them complete

17

To express how much it didn’t want to die.

 

It ran with terror and with cunning crept.

19

It faltered: I could see it hesitate;

 

Then in the middle of the open sheet

21

Cower down in desperation to accept

 

Whatever I accorded it of fate.

23

I have none of the tenderer-than-thou

 

Collectivistic regimenting love

25

With which the modern world is being swept.

 

But this poor microscopic item now!

27

Since it was nothing I knew evil of

 

I let it lie there till I hope it slept.

29

I have a mind myself and recognize

 

Mind when I meet with it in any guise.

31

No one can know how glad I am to find

 

On any sheet the least display of mind.

33

The visitor didn't wait for me to get my camera, it scuttered off to some darker and more amenable lodging.

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