Jeong Ho-seung's poem (36)
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A Spider
Translated by Brother Anthony and Susan Hwang
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Early one morning
as I was walking up the road to Baekdam-sa Temple,
all the tears I have ever shed in life were hanging
on the spiders’ webs strung from branch to branch.
One great spider,
who’d been approaching in a hurry, eager to gobble up my tears,
was now, hands joined
in the morning sunlight,
silently
saying grace.
* * *
In this short poem, a spider is engaged in prayer. The spider is saying a prayer before its meal (of dewdrop-tears).