Category: spider

Stronger Than Seems Possible

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Light comes softly through the morning mist,
splinters as it settles on dewdrops that dangle

from the web. Pulled taut and lovely, the web
stretches above a mass of leaves-

green, amethyst, and pale rose.
silken lines hold fast to spindly branches,

all anchored to the center, geometric
rings of connection, so delicate, so strong

like this catch-all we call life,
how we gather what we think we need

for sustenance, how prisms of light flash
and fade on the fragile structures we create,

how we tremble through storms
holding on, stronger than seems possible.
~Lois Edstrom “A Fragile Light” from MoonPath Press 2025

I too am feeling stretched, trying to connect between post and branch and leaf and ground.

I move between them, sometimes not sure where I’ll land or what I’ll leave behind. Connection is a hard and heavy work of strength and aspiration, not knowing what stands firm in a world where wind and rain and storms or an oblivious creature can tear things all asunder.

Sometimes what I weave is both beautifully delicate and strong.

Sometimes it is easily shredded, full of holes, and ultimately useless.

The center doesn’t always hold. 
The tethers loosen. 
The periphery sags, frays and tears.

It is a matrix of fragile light, yet holding on…

…something created with purpose and intention.
Simply that effort makes it all worthwhile.

I’ll try again tomorrow.

(Lois Edstrom is my poet friend who lives on nearby Whidbey Island; my web photo at the top of this post is the cover for her new book of poems: A Fragile Light)

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An Undivided Wonder

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One grief, all evening—: I’ve stumbled
upon another animal merely being
             itself and still cuffing me to grace.

             This time a bumblebee, black and staggered
above some wet sidewalk litter. When I stop
             at what I think is dying

             to deny loneliness one more triumph,
I see instead a thing drunk
           with discovery—the bee entangled

            with blossom after pale, rain-dropped blossom
gathered beneath a dogwood. And suddenly
             I receive the cold curves and severe angles

             from this morning’s difficult dreams
about faith:—certain as light, arriving; certain
            as light, dimming to another shadowed wait.

            How many strokes of undivided wonder
will have me cross the next border,
            my hands emptied of questions?
~Geffrey Davis “West Virginia Nocturne” from Night Angler

So much happens in the lives of creatures in the world
above, around, and beneath our feet.
The dewy immobilized bumblebee,
the ladybug floating, rescued by a cloverleaf,
the translucent spider hiding in a blossom fold.

Most of the time we are oblivious,
absorbed in our own joys, fears, and sorrows,
struggling to understand our own place in the world,
unsure if we people are the only image of our Creator.

But life’s drama doesn’t just belong to us.

It is the baby bird fallen from the nest too young,
rescued from mouth of the barn cat.
It is the farmyard snake abandoning its ghost-like skin.
It is the spider residing in the tulip, ready to grab the honey bee.
It is the praying mantis poised to swallow the fly.
It is the katydid, the cricket, the grasshopper trying to blend in.

When I struggle with my faith in this often cruel world,
I realize not every question, not every doubt, needs answers.
It is enough, as a trusting witness of all that is wondrous around me,
to pray someday it will no longer be mysterious.

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It’s Heavy Work

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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.
~Kay Ryan “Spiderweb”

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.
~Walt Whitman “The Noiseless Patient Spider”

Silk-thin silver strings woven cleverly into a lair,
An intricate entwining of divinest thread…
Like strands of magic worked upon the air,
The spider spins his enchanted web –
His home so eerily, spiraling spreads.

His gossamer so rigid, yet lighter than mist,
And like an eight-legged sorcerer – a wizard blest,
His lace, like a spell, he conjures and knits;
I witnessed such wild ingenuity wrought and finessed,
Watching the spider weave a dream from his web.
~Jonathan Platt “A Spider’s Web”

I am stretched, trying to connect between post and branch and leaf and ground.

I leap between them, sometimes not sure where I’ll land or what I’ll leave behind. Connection is hard and heavy work, not knowing what stands firm in a world where wind and rain and storms or some unaware creature can tear things all asunder.

Sometimes what I weave is beautifully delicate and functional.

Sometimes it is blurry, full of holes, and ultimately useless. The center doesn’t always hold. The tethers loosen. The periphery frays and tears. It doesn’t last long.

But it was something I labored with purpose and intent to create.
And that effort makes it all worthwhile.

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The spider, dropping down from twig,
Unfolds a plan of her devising,
A thin premeditated rig
To use in rising.
And all that journey down through space,
In cool descent and loyal hearted,
She spins a ladder to the place
From where she started.
Thus I, gone forth as spiders do
In spider’s web a truth discerning,
Attach one silken thread to you
For my returning.
~E.B. White

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Swinging From the Rafters

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The porch swing hangs fixed in a morning sun
that bleaches its gray slats, its flowered cushion
whose flowers have faded, like those of summer,
and a small brown spider has hung out her web
on a line between porch post and chain
so that no one may swing without breaking it.
She is saying it’s time that the swinging were done with,
time that the creaking and pinging and popping
that sang through the ceiling were past,
time now for the soft vibrations of moths,
the wasp tapping each board for an entrance,
the cool dewdrops to brush from her work
every morning, one world at a time.
~Ted Kooser “Porch Swing in September” from Flying at Night

We build our little lives so carefully, strand by strand,
one world at a time;
planned and choreographed and anticipated,
and all it takes is a creaky swing to pull it to shreds.

So we rebuild once again, spinning and creating web designs,
believing we belong because it is that time of year.

Everything around us is changing, swinging from the rafters –
who pays attention to how we’re left hanging?

We keep trying.
We keep trusting we have a place here, still weaving connections.
We keep trying to make the world a little more beautiful and habitable.

For everyone belongs, no matter who we are…

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The Work of Weaving Dreams

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Silk-thin silver strings woven cleverly into a lair,
An intricate entwining of divinest thread…
Like strands of magic worked upon the air,
The spider spins his enchanted web –
His home so eerily, spiraling spreads.

His gossamer so rigid, yet lighter than mist,
And like an eight-legged sorcerer – a wizard blest,
His lace, like a spell, he conjures and knits;
I witnessed such wild ingenuity wrought and finessed,
Watching the spider weave a dream from his web.
~Jonathan Platt “A Spider’s Web”

Not everyone is taking a holiday today on Labor Day.
Some are busier than ever, creating a masterpiece nightly,
then waiting in hope for that labor to be rewarded.

I too spin elaborate dreams at night:
some remembered,
some bare fragments,
some shattered,
some potentially yield a meal.

We work because we are hungry.
We work because someone we love is hungry and needs feeding.

Yet the best work is the work of weaving dreams
~out of thin air and gossamer strands~
where nothing existed before,
not as a trap or lure or lair
but as a work of beauty-
a gift as welcome as a breath of fresh air.

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The Grandest Spectacle

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There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.
~Victor Hugo from Les Misérables

There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.
~John Calvin quoted in John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait 

Already the end of August.
As another summer wraps up, I am blinded to the glory surrounding me in the seemingly commonplace.

I can’t remember the last time I celebrated a blade of grass, given how focused I am at mowing it into conformity.

I didn’t notice how the morning light was illuminating our walnut tree until I saw the perfect reflection of it in our koi pond — why had I marveled at a reflection instead of the real thing itself?

I mistook a spider’s overnight artwork in the grass: from a distance, it looked like a dew-soaked tissue draped like a tent over the green blades. When I went to go pick it up to throw it away in the trash, I realized I was staring at a small creature’s masterpiece.

I miss opportunities to rejoice innumerable times a day. It takes only a moment of recognition and appreciation to feel the joy, and in that moment time stands still. Life stretches a little longer when I stop to acknowledge the intention of creation as an endless reservoir of rejoicing. 

If the sea and the sky, a blade of grass, a leaf turning color, a chance reflection, a delicately woven web — if all this is made for joy, then maybe so am I.

Colorless, plain and commonplace me – created an image-bearer and intended reflector of Light?

Grandest of all is the spectacle of the interior of the soul;
yes then, so am I.

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Woven Lace Held in Place

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A poem is a spider web
Spun with words of wonder,
Woven lace held in place
By whispers made of thunder.
~Charles Ghigna “A Poem is a Spider Web”

Silk-thin silver strings woven cleverly into a lair,
An intricate entwining of divinest thread…
Like strands of magic worked upon the air,
The spider spins his enchanted web –
His home so eerily, spiraling spreads.

His gossamer so rigid, yet lighter than mist,
And like an eight-legged sorcerer – a wizard blest,
His lace, like a spell, he conjures and knits;
I witnessed such wild ingenuity wrought and finessed,
Watching the spider weave a dream from his web.
~Jonathan Platt “A Spider’s Web”

The spider, dropping down from twig,
Unfolds a plan of her devising,
A thin premeditated rig
To use in rising.

And all that journey down through space,
In cool descent and loyal hearted,
She spins a ladder to the place
From where she started.

Thus I, gone forth as spiders do
In spider’s web a truth discerning,
Attach one silken thread to you
For my returning.
~E.B. White “Natural History”
(written to his wife as a love letter in 1929)

I wander our barnyard,
studying the complexities of web design,
marveling at a tiny creature’s woven lace
of connection using the slenderest thread.

I don’t have eight legs, nor make silk,
yet I whisper and weave my words and pictures
from this corner of the Web,
waiting patiently for the shimmer of connection:
perhaps a rumbling thunder might be heard.

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Another and Another

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l (a

le
af
fa
ll

s)
one
l
iness…

~e.e. cummings “(A Leaf Falls with Loneliness)”

The trees are undressing, and fling in many places—
On the gray road, the roof, the window-sill—
Their radiant robes and ribbons and yellow laces;
A leaf each second so is flung at will,
Here, there, another and another, still and still.

A spider’s web has caught one while downcoming,
That stays there dangling when the rest pass on;
Like a suspended criminal hangs he, mumming
In golden garb, while one yet green, high yon,
Trembles, as fearing such a fate for himself anon.
~Thomas Hardy from “Last Week in October”

Some feel such loneliness,
as if being the only one to fall
until landing gently cushioned
among so many others, still and still.

A few end up suspended, here and there,
twisting and turning in a chill wind,
helplessly awaiting what is to come.

So I dangle in suspense,
held by sheer faith to a slender thread,
hoping for rescue while others pass me by ~~
another and another, still and still
until that apprehensive moment
when I too am let go,
though no longer lonely.

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No Place to Call Home

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My daughter
wouldn’t hurt a spider
That had nested
Between her bicycle handles
For two weeks
She waited
Until it left of its own accord

If you tear down the web I said
It will simply know
This isn’t a place to call home
And you’d get to go biking
She said that’s how others
Become refugees isn’t it?
~Fady Joudah “Mimesis” from Alight

Like these lands we travel through,
I have grown weary, so rough, so dry.
I wet a finger to give suck
but it never lasts longs. When the baby
cries, the sound comes sharper. It cuts me.

Some didn’t believe the stories
of soldiers pouring south, what they did
to the women, to children.
Made the men watch then let them live.
Some didn’t believe, but my husband
did not hesitate: we cannot wait, he said.

We travel between slaughter and exile.
A foreign land, people who already hate us.
How will they ever take us in? What will we do
when they turn us back? Afraid ourselves,
we instruct the little ones to be quiet,
but an infant only understands hunger.

I lay him against me, try the finger trick;
he snuggles in and falls asleep, his lips
still moving. The moon was full
but is now empty, like me. I was a child
but now am woman, a mother. Is this all

I can give this child—a world of rage and shame,
of bloodshed and vengeance?
~Edward Dougherty from “Between Slaughter and Exile”

Over the eons of human history, very few people groups have been able to remain exactly where they first settled.

The forces that drive tribes, cultures and communities to move on or be chased out are multiple and often overlapping: natural disasters, poverty, disease, prejudice, persecution, oppression, drought, starvation, war, politics.

Some simply seek refuge in hope of a better life.

We who sit safe and snug in our homes forget there was no such comfort for many of the generations preceding us. Those displaced faced terrible risks as they sought out safety. Millions have suffered and died in the hope of securing a future for themselves and their descendants. Countries – even ours, the richest on earth – struggle to house and feed their own residents, much less able to cope with those who arrive even more destitute and desperate. Doors and borders around the world slam shut and remain closed.

No child should be caught in this ongoing cycle of grief and weeping, rage and shame, bloodshed and vengeance, slaughter and exile. We watch history repeat itself, again and again; we become history in the making.

May God work out a solution when mere people cannot.

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Don’t Worry…

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Don’t worry, spiders,
I keep house casually.
~Kobayashi Issa (translation by Robert Hass)


I don’t mind sharing our house with spiders this time of year. Even so, my hospitality tends to wane if they surprise me in the night by weaving their web at face height, right where I’ll be walking to the bathroom in the dark.

They appear in the most puzzling spots. I wonder if the spiders engage in magical thinking about what insects they might catch in the bathtub or above the kitchen sink. Maybe a fruit fly (or a hundred) this time of year?

The living room, where we generally only sit when we have company, seems a rather formal spot for a spider to take up space in the upper corner, yet even there – cobwebs are hanging, abandoned and forlorn.

Good luck to you, my little arachnoid friends. Perhaps I’ll open the door to a few house flies and a moth or two and see if one might pay you a visit.

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