Category: spider

A Silken Connection

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Someone said my name in the garden,

while I grew smaller
in the spreading shadow of the peonies,

grew larger by my absence to another,
grew older among the ants, ancient

under the opening heads of the flowers,
new to myself, and stranger.

When I heard my name again, it sounded far,
like the name of the child next door,
or a favorite cousin visiting for the summer,

while the quiet seemed my true name,
a near and inaudible singing
born of hidden ground.

Quiet to quiet, I called back.
And the birds declared my whereabouts all morning.
~Li-Young Lee “Out of Hiding”

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”

I seek out the hidden web artist
who rebuilds this remarkable funnel
in an open pipe attached to a gate
I open and close daily without a thought.

As I approach, I see the weaver’s legs
scurrying hurriedly down into the safety of
its chosen darkness.

This spider needs temerity, not timidity,
to find its meal.

How else might it issue a dinner invitation,
luring me down into a sticky funnel vortex,
as a cherished guest meant never to return?

If I go astray and wander into temptation,
lose my way and plunge into the hole,
a silken thread remains:
hearing Him call out
my name from the garden,
urging me to return
to Whom I belong.

Indeed my soul hangs
by this single gossamer thread~
this silken connection calls me
back home, back to eternity.

There’s more that rises in the morning
Than the sun
And more that shines in the night
Than just the moon
It’s more than just this fire here
That keeps me warm
In a shelter that is larger
Than this room

And there’s a loyalty that’s deeper
Than mere sentiments
And a music higher than the songs
That I can sing
The stuff of Earth competes
For the allegiance
I owe only to the Giver
Of all good things

So if I stand let me stand on the promise
That you will pull me through
And if I can’t, let me fall on the grace
That first brought me to You
And if I sing let me sing for the joy
That has born in me these songs
And if I weep let it be as a man
Who is longing for his home

There’s more that dances on the prairies
Than the wind
More that pulses in the ocean
Than the tide
There’s a love that is fiercer
Than the love between friends
More gentle than a mother’s
When her baby’s at her side
~Rich Mullins

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To Live One More Day

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What a slow way to eat, the butterfly
is given by Nature, sipping nectar
one tiny blue flower at a time. Though
a Monarch in name, she’s made to scavenge
like the poorest of the poor, a morsel
here, a morsel there. A flutter of ink-
splattered orange wings. We don’t want to see
the struggle that undergirds the grace: the
ballerina’s sweat, or her ruined feet
hidden by tights and toe-shoes. She knows her
career will be as brief as it was hard
to achieve. Pollinated, the tiny
blue flowers are sated. The butterfly
flits away, hoping to live one more day.
~Barbara Quick, “The Struggle That Undergirds the Grace.”

You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing.
I wove my webs for you because I liked you.
After all, what’s a life, anyway?
We’re born, we live a little while, we die.
A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess,
with all this trapping and eating flies.
By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle.
Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.
~E. B. White, Charlotte’s Web



…And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.
~Audre Lorde from “A Litany for Survival”

We are here so briefly.
We were never designed to survive forever on this earth
yet we try to run the clock out as long as we can.

Just one day more.

We are here because of struggle –
the pain of our birth, whether the cry of our laboring mother,
or our own wrestling free of the cocoon or the shell,
our daily work to find food
to feed ourselves and our young,
the upkeep and maintenance of our frail and failing bodies,
our ongoing fear we’ll be taken
before we can make a difference in another’s life.

If there is a reason for all this (and there is):
our struggle forms the grace of another’s salvation.
The flowers bloom to feed the butterfly,
the butterfly pollinates the flower,
ensuring the next generations of both.
The silent and weakened find their voice
so that the next generation can thrive.

Heaven knows,
anyone’s life can stand a little of that.

Just one day more, Lord. Please – one day more.

Tomorrow we’ll discover
What our God in Heaven has in store
One more dawn
One more day
One day more…
~from Les Miserable

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Holding On Together

barnstormingblog5 Comments

today
feels like a day
to unplug the dryer
and hang
laundry on the line
in the back yard
next to the busy street
where all the truckers
and farmers
and school kids
drive by

but i don’t
have a clothes line.
~LW Lindquist “today”

Through the window I see
Her, my neighbour.
She hangs his shirt.
It thunders in the breeze.
Clasped by a clothespin
Beside her pale dress.
Side by side, they move.
The clothespin is all
That holds them
together.
~Ronda Bower “The Clothespin”

Silken web undulates,
a lady’s private wash
upon the wind.
~L.L. Barkat

We do have a clothesline that I use several times a week to take advantage of sunlight, breezes, fresh air fragrance – all at no cost but the time it takes to carry laundry outside, hang it up with my ancient clothespins, and then pull it back down at the end of the day.

It is well worth the effort; I have been fortunate to always live where there is a line and clothespins.

This morning, I found someone had been very busy during the night, securing the clothespins to the line to make sure the pins could not escape. Each pin and hinge were laced to the line with silken threads clinging tightly, just in case a pin might consider escaping.

I looked for this industrious spider, as it had trekked down a long line, working its webby magic through numerous clothespins, yet it had descended and snuck away, not even waiting to see what might happen to all its work.

The old and weathered clothespins patiently wait for their next job, to pinch together what I give them to hold on to tomorrow. In the meantime, they cling to fresh life, gaily festooned with gossamer silk.

Spun with Wonder

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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

I wandered the barnyard this morning
studying the complexities of overnight web design,
marveling at one tiny creature’s creative masterpiece
of connection using the slenderest thread.

Through my words and pictures I whisper
from my own corner of the web
and wait patiently for the shimmer of some slim connection,
wondering if my rumbling thunder has been heard.

Dangling

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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 “Last Week in October”

We too are flung into the unknown,
trembling tethered in the breezes,
unready to let go of what sustains us,
fated to be tossed wherever the wind blows us.

If caught up by a silken thread,
left to dangle, suspended by faith,
we await the hope of rescue,
alone and together,
another and another, still and still.

Hard at Work

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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.

Intended for Joy

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There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.
~John Calvin as quoted in  John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait (Oxford, 1988) by William J. Bouwsma

It is too easy to become blinded to the glory surrounding us if we perceive it to be routine and commonplace.

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

Too often I’m not up early enough to witness the pink sunrise or I’m too busy to take time to watch the sun paint the sky red as it sets or to witness our horses turning to gold in the evening glow.

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

I almost missed the miracle of a spider’s overnight work 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 a blade of grass, if a leaf turning color, if a chance reflection, if a delicately knit tent in the grass — if all this is made for joy, then maybe so am I.

Even colorless, plain and commonplace me, created an image-bearer and intended reflector of Light.

Maybe so am I.

So Bugged

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Sometimes I’d get mad
because things didn’t work out well,
I’d spoil a flapjack,
or slip in the snowfield while getting water,
or one time my shovel went sailing down into the gorge,
and I’d be so mad I’d want to bite the mountaintops
and would come in the shack
and kick the cupboard and hurt my toe.

But let the mind beware,
that though the flesh be bugged,
the circumstances of existence are pretty glorious.
~Jack Kerouac from The Dharma Bums

Little things can bug us.  In fact, like a thistle covered with aphids which entices ants,  we can be bugged on top of bugged.

Yet we still bloom. We are on notice there is joy to be found. What solace is this?  

Though bugs exult in irritating us, flaunting our flawed flesh, it is a reminder of our vulnerability during our short stay on this good earth, bugs and all.  

The rest is all glorious, right down to the thirsty roots that hold us fast. 

To Hone and Tend Creation

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goldenoctmorn6

 

morningmeadow

 

homermaple

 

 

Creation is the arena in and through which God wishes to reveal himself. 
In creating, in preserving, in pursuing; in hallowing, in participating, in wooing—
the Father, the Son, and the Spirit have made all creation, 
and all its creatures, great and small, their delight.

We recognize that, being made in his image, we are appointed as his stewards. 
This does not give us carte blanche with God’s world. 
We are not given creation to plunder, 
but to hone and tend in such ways that every little part of it gives glory to God.
~Kathleen Mulhern in Dry Bones

 

 

fog101948

 

milkcoma

 

rexrabbit

 

turkey3

 

grumpyfinch

 

I like the thought of creation being “wooed” into existence by God.  Indeed I need to be gently wooed into tackling the day and tending my part of creation.  The night may have been sleepless, the worry endless, the efforts I make futile.

Yet I’m here for a reason, as is every spider, mouse and even mosquito.  It is all to His glory, as insignificant as I feel.

There can be nothing but wooing wonder in all He has made.

 

 

 

simba2

 

fog101953

 

snailexplore

 

spider98181

 

God’s Humblest

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flylunaria

 

clock

 

bumblebeebum

 

 

 

I
A shaded lamp and a waving blind,
And the beat of a clock from a distant floor:
On this scene enter–winged, horned, and spined –
A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore;
While ‘mid my page there idly stands
A sleepy fly, that rubs its hands . . .

II
Thus meet we five, in this still place,
At this point of time, at this point in space.
– My guests parade my new-penned ink,
Or bang at the lamp-glass, whirl, and sink.
“God’s humblest, they!” I muse. Yet why?
They know Earth-secrets that know not I.
~Thomas Hardy – “An August Midnight”

 

 

ladybug4

 

mothwing2

 

There are so many more of them than us.  Yes, insects appear where we don’t expect them, they sting and bite and crawl and fly in our mouths and generally be annoying.  But without God’s humblest knowing the secrets of the inner workings of the blossom and the soil, we’d have no fruit, no seeds, no earth as we know it.

Even more humble are our microscopic live-in neighbors — the biome of our skin and gut affecting and managing our internal chemistry and physiology in ways we are only beginning to understand.

God created us all, each and every one, from the turning and cycles of smallest of atoms and microbes to the expanding swirl of galaxies far beyond us.

Perhaps the humblest of all, found smack-dab in the middle of this astounding creation, is the intended Imago Dei.

Two legs not six or eight, two eyes not many, no wings, no antennae, no stinger.

Just one fragile and loving heart.

 

 

creepershadow