The Weavers

As sometimes, in the gentler months, the sun

will return

                          before the rain has altogether

                                                      stopped and through

this lightest of curtains the curve of it shines

with a thousand

                            inclinations and so close

                                                        is the one to the

one adjacent that you cannot tell where magenta

for instance begins

                           and where the all-but-magenta

                                                      has ended and yet

you’d never mistake the blues for red, so these two,

the girl and the

                          goddess, with their earth-bred, grass-

                                                      fed, kettle-dyed

wools, devised on their looms

transitions so subtle no

                           hand could trace nor eye discern

                                                       their increments,

yet the stories they told were perfectly clear.

The gods in their heaven,

                           the one proposed. The gods in

                                                       heat, said the other.

And ludicrous too, with their pinions and swansdown,

fins and hooves,

                           their shepherds’ crooks and pizzles.

                                                       Till mingling

with their darlings-for-a-day they made

a progeny so motley it

                           defied all sorting-out.

                                                      It wasn’t the boasting

brought Arachne all her sorrow

nor even

                           the knowing her craft so well.

                                                      Once true

and twice attested.

It was simply the logic she’d already

                            taught us how

                                                       to read.