Art appreciation

(a response to Robert Frost's poem Design)



What but design of darkness do appall?—
If design govern in a thing so small.
               
               —  —

Spiders' lower leg joints contain special pads
which dampen low frequency vibrations
like wind and sway
and transmit high frequency vibrations
like crawling prey and mating calls;

and the pads transition from plastic to glassy when the sun goes down
to be stiffer at night than the day,
to transmit vibrations from further afield
when the nocturnal assassin is most active
and focus on the closer range when not;

and the pads have these little slits
capable of measuring movement
on the order of a handful of atoms,
which is a decent way to measure anything
from movement to the flow of its own blood;

and that's just one part
in one joint
of one leg
of one small arachnid
huddled unobtrusively on a flower
sucking sustenance plucked from above.

Had dear old Frost been informed
of what it was, the moving of parts,
no doubt he would have sauntered off
muttering about the death of a moment;
I would be left behind, staring in awe
of this perfect predatory creation,
amygdala screaming evolutionary murder
over the arachnid killer before me, but still entranced:

Design is an eternal tinkerer, benign discoverer
behind thick smudged gold-rim glasses
in a dusty sunlit workshop, elemental creator
holding sparks of life up to the light in his palm,
smiling at the beauty,
a simple lover of elegance in form.
There are those that play God by creating,
but I prefer to approach divinity through appreciation.