Guy-Lines

Ten spiders heard about a guy
on which the spiders could rely.
He offered each a private line
on which the spiders could unwind.

The spider guy did go to bat
for each arachnid habitat.
A line for each to spin their thread,
a spidery suspension bed!

Guy watched the spiders one June night
beneath the web of full moonlight.
And as the spiders all hung ten,
Guy wrote of them inside his den.

Guy even wrote, “The Spider’s Ode,”
about their silken web workload:

  O spider, how you spin your web!
  And as I watch the moonlight ebb
  I am in awe of your fine care
  constructing lines within the air!

  (Now Guy gave each spider a name
  although all eight legs looked the same;
  but to himself he kept this quirk
  lest reputation need casework.)

His spiders lived on lines each night
within his mind or in his sight.
Between the porch eave and a fence
would silken spider lines condense.

But in the day Guy wrote the lines
about his friend’s website designs.
For spider webs are well-arrayed
and guy-lines are their stock-in-trade.

30 Lines

(A guy-line, an engineering term, is a rope or cable used
to restrain the motion of something, like a tower or mast.)