I'm thankful for that time in my life, as it led me to a better understanding of language and syntax and nuance and just how perfectly crafted words could be. Up to that point in my life, I'd never had a shortage of words, but I do think I spent a lot of time as a "resounding gong"... making lots of noise, but not really saying anything.
It was in the first Oral Interpretation class that I first read this Robert Frost poem:
Design
(borrowed from Poem Hunter, link)
I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth --
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth --
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.
What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.
The whole poem is a "wait, what?" kind of moment. A white heal-all? No way! That flowers is supposed to be bluish-purple! And a white spider? How peculiar! And the white spider, on the white flower, has captured a white moth?
Perhaps you can see the religious imagery with me here. It's a lot like the white imagery we read in The Storm by Kate Chopin. Surrounded by so much purity (white sheets, white clothes, white walls), there was a story of adultery. In Frost's poem, the white trio included a gruesome picture of death, the spider eating the moth. There's an element of irony as well, in that the moth is dying on a flower known for its medicinal properties of healing!
Frost concludes that God's fingertips miss nothing. That the timing is perfect for the spider to be fed, that the flower was perfect for hiding the spider, and that the moth was a perfectly color-coordinated dinner for one reason: it was all done by a Designer.
Now I think about this poem when I see the tiniest flecks of bright green in a fly or the texture of the daffodils, right now in my backyard. There's no place where someone forgot to paint the roses red or to finish sketching out the plan. In everything in nature, there is a perfect salute to Design.
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth --
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth --
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.
What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.
Perhaps you can see the religious imagery with me here. It's a lot like the white imagery we read in The Storm by Kate Chopin. Surrounded by so much purity (white sheets, white clothes, white walls), there was a story of adultery. In Frost's poem, the white trio included a gruesome picture of death, the spider eating the moth. There's an element of irony as well, in that the moth is dying on a flower known for its medicinal properties of healing!
Frost concludes that God's fingertips miss nothing. That the timing is perfect for the spider to be fed, that the flower was perfect for hiding the spider, and that the moth was a perfectly color-coordinated dinner for one reason: it was all done by a Designer.
Now I think about this poem when I see the tiniest flecks of bright green in a fly or the texture of the daffodils, right now in my backyard. There's no place where someone forgot to paint the roses red or to finish sketching out the plan. In everything in nature, there is a perfect salute to Design.
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