Spiders

from My Travels Among the Spiders

Sometimes, during the spring after a rain

I hear the love-ruined voices

of spiders at night, walking in the trees

outside my window, stitching up lamp-light

and darkness in the limbs and leaves.

Several times before, I have stepped

quietly downstairs and hidden behind

the Privet hedge in my garden, shining

with a flashlight for the blue sparks

of spider eyes at night.  I love to watch

the secret spiders play as they defy

our best-kept law, floating, mid-air, in

and out of light.  I often have noticed

their legs, so much longer than stars.

Sometimes, when they are at their worst,

patching up all the trees with passion,

I have known them to stretch some fallen star

into strings of light across one of my usual

garden paths.  On these occasions,

I walk unawares into their feathery embrace.

For a moment, I am held like Gulliver

by the tiniest

of threads until I move

in the surge of my surprise and silver lines

pull loose from their moorings

in the limbs.  It is then, in all directions,

that spiders abandon their play and run

on silken legs to hide their turquoise eyes

in the canopy of shadows and leaves.