A Considerable Speck (Microscopic)

Richard Law, 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).

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.