Spider Spider

Going into my house you could see her on the right.

And coming out she faced us, halfway between

minding her own business and menacing us,

A bright-spotted black arachnid, yellow splashed on her back

Looked to be poisonous

Didn't have the heart to check with an expert

She made me duck left upon passing in, 

And keep sharp right with respect as I tried to leave.

We watched her build a web in that inconvenient spot

Which caused us no immediate trouble but

   forced us to deal with her in some way.

She spent her time in that alcove, floating on her gossamer between the house, the rail, the wooden fencepost

Bobbing up and down in the wind

Making an eight-footed x with her body

Neither threatening us, nor leaving us alone

In order to pass I had to stare her down

Trying to be an equal to the independent creature

That has no need of friends

We figured she'd be gone in a week

 and we'd be grateful for having her, for getting that close to her poison and surviving unhurt

She stayed, sucked up flies

Grew bigger.

The first egg emerged from her abdomen one night.

It was after our own troubles began

And we just coping with the loss of our child.

Did not want to begrudge her hers,

But I kept wishing the heavy rains would wash her out

Like the spider in the nursery rhyme

No.  She hung unscathed, the downpour passing through her web,

the strands equal to the fiercest wind and water, the egg-sac well tucked under a shingle.

By two weeks I wanted to get rid of her, no, wanted nature to take care of her own

Wanted my need for an easy mind,

from staring at her face in a time when I rotted from inside,

 to be met by a natural symmetry in the world

 which makes poetic things happen

She remained, vacillated bigger and smaller as the blood flowed from bug to her

Gave us an unencumbered view of her tireless work

Daily, meticulous, natural, suggesting attack but with no need to manifest it,

craftsperson, builder, architect, loving parent.

I wondered if it were true , like I heard in Blade Runner, that her children would eat her?

If not, then what?

I imagined removing her and the sac to head off an infestation.

I imagined doing nothing, the little spiders floating away courtesy of E.B.White.

Neither kicked me into a decision path.

As our own troubles deepened

As my wife bore our stillborn son and we mourned him

 in that very same place,

she remained.

No sense of irony came to our rescue

God had forgotten how sensitive we are to poetic justice.

I grew angry at her

I hated her

I dreamed around her, feared for the poison to enter my neck as I passed.

She grew huge again, and some thought she might rebear.

And though I doubted it,

she did.

Two sacs hung, feet from each other, and she tended them.

By crossing that barrier, the egg entered into rationalization via Jewish law, that a threat to life may be taken care of pre-emptively, never mind that I didn't know whether she was poisonous or not

I couldn't have two egg-sacs.

"Hit bad luck to kill a spider" says Huck, and so I believe it,

So I gathered some tupperware and a lid,

Put on a long-sleeve shirt, long jeans, wrapped a scarf around my neck, donned a hat, covered all but my eyes, wore the only gloves I could find, two right-handed rubber gloves, and I was ready to do battle with the spider.

It took me five minutes of standing there scared to determine that she was ready to be moved.

My decision was based on no logic at all.

She tended the upper sac carefully and I felt double guilty.  But

I took her, and though my first swipe scared her, and her first move was to clutch at her sac so I felt triple guilty

I got her in the bowl hoping I hadn't bruised her.

She moved on that frictionless surface no doubt wondering what was happening to her.

I took her across the street

In terror I dumped her by a tree

And went back to get the eggs.

I had thought the webs flimsy and the sacs substantial, but they were light and had to be scraped almost like jelly from the million sticky threads that had bound them so securely

I deformed one as I pried it loose, changing its shape, I suppose forever, hoping I had not killed the babies inside, though they were my enemy.

The second came no sooner, but less from damage, and I moved them to the tree by their mother's body

She had not moved

And had not moved again when I checked her two hours later.

Curled up either in death or shock

I wonder will the babies eat her when they arrive?

Only hours later as I pass that spot of her cradle

I still wince at the spot

Afraid to be pounced upon by my memory of her

Looking at the alcove with regret, and with no self-respect

All around us are cobwebs, products of nonexistent spinners,

ghosts of builders we never see

filaments of what has died and has been cast out.