Welcome back to the Daily Poem here in the Close Reeds Podcast Network. I'm David Kern. Today is

January 31st, 2020, and I apologize that this episode is going up a little bit late today.

But as I mentioned a couple days ago, or yesterday, I suppose. January 29th was when Robert

Frost died. He died January 29th, 1963. So I wanted to share one more poem of his with you in recognition of his life.

Of course, he was the only poet to win four Pulitzer Prizes for poetry. He also won the

Congressional Gold Medal, and he was Poet Laureate of Vermont. So one of the most influential

and highly thought of poets to ever write in the English language and certainly

of the American poets. The poem that I'm going to read today is called Design, and it goes like

this. I found a dimpled spider, fat and white on a white heel all, holding up a moth like a white

piece of rigid satin cloth.

Assorted characters of death and blight mixed ready to begin the morning right,

like the ingredients of a witch's broth, a snowdrop spider, a flower like a froth,

and dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,

the wayside blue and innocent helal?

What brought the kindred spider to that height,

then steered the white moth thither in the night?

What but design of darkness to appall

if design governed in a thing so small.

So this is a 14-line poem divided into two stanzas.

The first stanza is eight lines.

The second one, the second stanza is six lines.

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