To A Magnificient Spinner, Murdered

Gnats and an ant have gnawed your nimble bones–
You who could spring and sprawl on your own thread
Down half the meadow. Under tiny stones
The ant has stored your essence. You are dead.

You stitched the air with level darts: the sun
Slid on your silvers. Now they slant oblique
Like strokes of rain....
Your neighbors have begun
To chew the cud of festoons. From the cheek
Of this, your hairy enemy, dangles one
Loop of his glee to tease your skeleton.

Wasps sting the grapes still, carry spider-spoil
In twisted torment past your web and on
Where their crude honey hangs in muddy cones.
The ants are hurried. One huge bee intones.
The pond is wrinkled with a velvet oil
Where gnats will hatch, with dusk, another spawn.