The Spider Speaks
No choice but to spin,
the life given.

Mother warned me
I would wake one dawn

to a sun no longer yellow,
to an expanse of blue,

no proper word
to name it. Weaving

the patterned threads
of my life, each day

another web and the next.
If instead I could carve

my message in stone,
would it mean more?

I have only this form
to give. When the last

silvery strand leaves
my belly, I will see

what colour the sun
has become.

--- Shara McCallum
From Black Nature
Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry

Camille T. Dungy, Editor
©2010 University of Georgia Press
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