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Anansi, black busybody of the folktales, |
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You scuttle out on impulse |
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Blunt in self-interest |
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As a sledge hammer, as a man’s bunched fist, |
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Yet of devils the cleverest |
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To get your carousals told: |
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You spun the cosmic web : you squint from center field. |
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Last summer I came upon your Spanish cousin, |
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Notable robber baron, |
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10 |
Behind a goatherd’s hut: |
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Near his small Stonehenge above the ants’ route, |
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One-third ant-size, a leggy spot, |
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He tripped an ant with a rope |
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Scarcely visible. About and about the slope |
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15 |
Of his redoubt he ran his nimble filament, |
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Each time round winding that ant |
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Tighter to the cocoon |
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Already veiling the gray spool of stone |
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From which coils, caught ants waved legs in |
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20 |
Torpid warning, or lay still |
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And suffered their livelier fellows to struggle. |
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Then briskly scaled his altar tiered with tethered ants, |
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Nodding in a somnolence |
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Appalling to witness, |
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25 |
To the barbarous outlook, from there chose |
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His next martyr to the gross cause |
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Of concupiscence. Once more |
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With black alacrity bound round his prisoner. |
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The ants—a file of comers, a file of goers— |
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30 |
Persevered on a set course |
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No scruple
could disrupt, |
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Obeying orders of instinct till swept |
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Off-stage and infamously wrapped |
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Up by a spry black deus |
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35 |
Ex machina.
Nor did they seem deterred by this. |