I shift my boots on the railing, and the spider that had been keeping watch from its web retreats to the eaves and curls up like a fist.
spiders
Light from the rising sun diffracts off a spider web in the eaves, turning it all the colors of the rainbow as it trembles in the wind.
A large spider rappels sideways across the yard on an invisible thread, while a bee struggles to maintain its balance on the porch rail.
Under a bowed head of goldenrod, a black and yellow garden spider hangs head-down, her web glittering with drops from last night’s rain.
As my father walks out of the woods, a rabbit bursts from a rosebush and dashes under the porch. A zebra spider circles the rim of my mug.
Something glitters on a tansy stalk next to the porch: the hard foam surface of a praying mantis egg case. A tiny spider dangles alongside.
A metallic green jumping spider, moving slowly in the morning cool, climbs from my green shirt sleeve to the green spine of my book.
A pair of bindweed trumpets side-by-side. Nearby, an Oswego tea plant wrapped in webbing swarms with baby spiders no bigger than asterisks.
Ushering an enormous wolf spider outside, I disturb a baby woodchuck. Grass blades weighed down by rain spring up as it barrels through.
Orion gets one leg above the trees before fading into the dawn. Inside, I rescue the cricket from a spider, put him out for the fourth time.
The vibrating of a dead branch…
The vibrating of a dead branch from which a bird has just flown. In a funnel spider web among the weeds, 14 raindrops from the last storm.
The first rays of sun catch a…
The first rays of sun catch a small spider spinning a line down from the porch eaves. One degree above freezing, and a deep blue sky.
Overnight, two maples on the far side of the road have begun to go orange. And between me and them, a small pale spider with her tiny prey.
Kitchen: wolf spider. Bathroom: silverfish. Dining room: millipede. And right above me on the porch, a gnatcatcher lands and sings.