I am there in the room

With a bird's eye view

Of eighteen monks

Sitting round a square table.

They laugh and talk all at once

Like a gaggle of geese.

Occasionally a raucous one

Will slap his forearm 

Down in front of him,

And from there, round the table,

Random arms will flap,

As if a fly were buzzing endangered.

As I watch the motion circle the square,

And listen to the conversation turn,

A dark dot emerges on the roof,

And I climb out of the whole that it produces.

For I am not a fly on the wall,

But a spider on the great mandala ceiling.

And I am the one the monks rejected.

I am the one the world says no to,

But I am the one that spins the web for the fates.

I am the one who made the twins

And put them to singing at the poles

To keep the entire earth in its balanced way.

And I am the one who loves the people.

I am the one who saves them.

I am the spider woman,

And the keeper of the lore.

-jenn