a writing poem

post #47

        I'm still at home, getting back into the nature dramas here, remembering that August was the month when we were transfixed by a spider who had built a web outside our window, a web that had zigzags in the middle.  It is also the month when this spider secured two sacs nearby but above the web, and, just like Charlotte in E.B.White's book Charlotte's Web, then the web builder died!  That was when I figured out that I had taken a photo of this kind of spider several years earlier, near our pond, and that one of its names is a writing spider. 

       

      Here is the photo in black and white:

      

     Here is the photo in its original color:

      So now the poem:
  

     

                 zigzag faith

For weeks we watch outside

the window, our spider writing,

wrapping prey, hanging

round sacs of eggs

east corner first, then one

high in the west, a mama

ever purposeful

even when at rest,

argiope aurantia.                                                [R guy oh pea/ or ranch a]

By her size we know

she is a she,

by her work she shares

her silken faith,

since we’ve no vegetation

to protect her, only glass

behind, the woven web

her shield and show.

 

She’s not yet gone frail,

not yet gone, leaving

us to watch both sacs

until the spring, a time

to hope, to know

her thousands plan

to float on air, as Wilbur

taught me years ago

when what I needed was

to know his love for Charlotte

and hers for him, shown

by words, in truths she told.

 

Now I’m taken by this steady

work, she who weaves on

and on while I stop,

go, debate, consider. 

Yet she but wafted in,

like me, her long stay

a sign of settling where

a writer needs to be.

   note:  The reason for showing both versions of the photo is to see which one shows the web design better.  I am drawn to the shapes of webs.  And I am so much a color person that I don't usually even try black and white.  I came to photography in the last 15 years and so never went through the dark room phase.  It was slides, then digital.  Also, webs are hard to get as sharp as they look since they are always in motion, responsive to every breath of air no matter how still the day.  Even the body of the photographer in the vicinity produces a quivering. 

   This is a good occasion to thank my monthly writers group for our years together and for the sharing of encouragement, help and words!