By Design

For several years, I have photographed a tiny bloom found everywhere on campus, but especially at Lake Cheston. Until yesterday, I didn't know its name although it figures prominently in one my favorite poems -- Robert Frost's "Design."

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-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 witches' broth --
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
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 govern in a thing so small.

Thanks to a friend's blog, I now know it's a Heal-all. Today's "design" was far less ominous: a tiny skipper found a point of light in woodsy darkness.

Thanks to the Sewanee Herbarium for giving new life to an old poem!