Sometimes I’m writing a serious story (like any of my stories are light hearted?) and an idea that’s completely silly enters my mind and I know if I write anything related to that I won’t be able to stop myself. I’ve returned to working on the story of Michele, Martin’s teacher in Martin of Gfenn. In the story he’s an illegitimate child, raised in a monastery. Through a series of events (that I don’t even know yet) his father — Bro. Benedetto, a Franciscan monk and a painter, with a sketchy past (ha ha) — goes to get him, and Michele becomes his father’s apprentice. Of course their relationship develops (if you’ve read Martin of Gfenn you know Michele revered his teacher) and I was wondering, “Should Bro. Benedetto (known fondly as Brother Benny) ever tell Michele of their true relationship?”

***

And NOW the most beautiful poem about webs I know…

A Noiseless Patient Spider

BY WALT WHITMAN

A noiseless patient spider, 
I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated, 
Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, 
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, 
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. 

And you O my soul where you stand, 
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, 
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, 
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold, 
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

***

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/08/27/rdp-tuesday-web/