Weaving the World

Music for SATB chorus, oboe, piano, and percussion by Pamela J. Marshall

Text adapted from the essay “Weaving the World” by Janisse Ray,
published in Audubon Magazine Jan/Feb 2002, and used with her kind permission.

 

Every night the spiders weave the world back together.

                  Their webs shine freshly gossamer in the new morning’s sun.

Everywhere the spiders stitch

                  leaf to tree

                  tree to shrub

                  shrub to ground

Each new-made web shines gossamer in the new sun.

 

The spiders weave webs that stitch the precious land to the blue blue sky

Above the stream each new-made web shines freshly gossamer in the new sun.

                                       Somewhere

                                       Someone is planning to kill

                                       Someone has been killed

                                       Someone grieves

                                       Someone hides in fear

 

Here by the black creek

I am not afraid of death.

Here I am far from sounds of war, sounds of terror.

I do not worry about a death I have not imagined.

 

In the spider’s world, in this sacred swamp,

the kingfisher careens, raucous, up the creek.

A doe wades out to drink.

The tiny cricket frogs leap from lily pad to spatterdock.

I see more sandhill cranes than people

and I know that black bears roam the woods unseen.

 

But I am not afraid.

The death I cannot imagine is far from here.

 

                                       Somewhere

                                       Someone is planning to kill

                                       Someone has been killed

                                       Someone grieves

 

In this, the spiders’ world, the fall grasses are flowering

in the trembling savannas__asters, yellow-eyed grass, meadow beauty.

The sun shines golden on the water.

Then flowers fade, fall turns to winter and winter brings a different beauty.

 

                                       Somewhere

                                       Someone hides in fear

                                       Someone has been killed

                                       Someone grieves

 

All life is transitory.

 

I have learned that I am not afraid of death

                  but I do fear an unforeseen death.

Do not let my death be fired by hate.

Let me prepare for death, and at the proper time, let me die naturally.

Every night the spiders weave the world back together.

Each web that we destroy they patiently repair.

Everywhere the spiders stitch

                  leaf to tree

tree to shrub

shrub to ground

The spiders weave webs that stitch the precious land to the blue blue sky.

Each new-made web shines gossamer in the new morning sun.

 

The spiders spin and spin

                  and hold this outrageously glorious world together.