Neighbors with Eight Legs

Years ago, I went on a poetry jag, writing about spiders. I was obsessive, much to my friends' dismay. Today I offer you three encounters.

Knitting with Anansi

Sitting in the porch swing

I loop yarn around and through

Looking up, I see an orb weaver

Tap its spinneret, unwinding

Silk along the damaged joints

Repairing tears and tatters

Left from last night's hunt.

Once the task is done

It settles in the core, waiting

A bright fluorescent lamp

Hides Ananzi's web and maker

Who would usually flee such glare

But now is patient, baiting

Any gnat or midge to come along.

Their confidence sustained

By spider's silence

Insects swarm and snare

In sticky filaments

Vibrations of their epic struggle

Alert the weaver

In a flash, it scrambles to its kill

wraps each flailing bug

in a tiny bundle.

In less time than it takes

For me to knit a row

Spider's arms hug around

its hard-earned feast

Neat and tidy courses to dine

In darkened midnight hours.

Once again the web, morose

And torn, hangs in shreds,

Spent and worn.

Tomorrow I will watch

This drama replay

while I loop my yarn

over and through

And knit another row.

Summer of Argiope

A summer novel abandoned on the chaise,

I scan a patch of bright calendula

and count the migrants who built

their webs between the stems.

Some mornings only two or three

hang upside down,

yellow swirls on black carapace,

sway slightly in the breath

of a summer’s afternoon.

One day I counted eight.

Respun each night, zigzag patterns

sign each fragile opus.

In August, reddish sacs appear.

Through autumn I wait and watch

long after mothers disappear.

Finally I have to clear dead plants away.

I lay the nurseries behind the shed

hoping spiderlings survive winter rains.

Next spring, I’ll plant calendula again

and wait for Argiope to return.

Ballooners

Monday morning chores,

the broom explores linoleum cracks.

Dust and musty odors enflame my nose.

Going outside to breathe unsoiled air,

I spot a string of pearls floating overhead.

Or are they dewdrops, dripping

from a twig snagged on the eave?

Closer, I watch, amazed as tiny

spiders hurl themselves adrift.

Tentative, their siblings bunch

behind them, they're snatched by the breeze,

carried to a destiny among giant trees.

If you enjoyed these poems, feel free to read more stories, essays, and poems in the Ring Around the Basin Archive.

Photo by Sue Cauhape