Friday, September 30, 2011

The Technology Meeting


Spider is a miracle
climbing by slips on nearly invisible thread.
I can watch it and still face toward
the speaker at the front of the room who is taking no stance.
His boss on the sidelines shoots him a glance.  He leans on the podium asking for thoughts.
His empty follow up questions convolute our responses into null sums.

Back to the spider:
Three of us watching it, none presume to impede.
Down some and up several times it glides to a stop on the tabletop and walks.
Could the man beside me casually rest his arm down and smash it?
I reach over, “Do you mind if I save it?”
It crawls onto my fingers. I set it on the floor behind us at the baseboard.

“Somebody might step on him now,” the man says low.
But the spider disappears into a crevice.
We turn back to business and I get the feeling
that the spider might’ve wanted its web in the ceiling.
And the speaker, more vague with each breath since he started,
Had planned to say more but his thunder was thwarted.


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