Delicate?

The world is too much with me - the world of work, that is, not the rest of it, which is rather too little with me if anything. But I have been reading, a few poems at a time, Kay Ryan's wonderful collection The Best Of It. And here is one, a little tour de force in which Ryan once again entirely upturns our habitual lazy way of looking at things. Who but she could make a construction site - and an image of the strenuousness of life - out of a spider's web?

SPIDERWEB

From other
angles the
fibers look
fragile, but
not from the
spider’s, always
hauling coarse
ropes, hitching
lines to the
best posts
possible. It’s
heavy work
everyplace,
fighting sag,
winching up
give. It
isn’t ever
delicate
to live.