She sees death all around her
in the abundance of life. Not death
of life, death because of life. Tenability
of fragile spider webs hold bugdom's
equivalent of the Grim Reaper.
The blaze of Coreopsis flowers
is expiring; darkening and drooping.
The wall of stellar jasmine’s white universe
now holds brown, shriveled dwarf stars.

A Tarantula Hawk has paralyzed
a Wolf Spider, and is looking for
a likely spot to tunnel into the dry earth,
constantly twitching her blue wings
as she tests for compaction ratios
with her insect feet. She will
create a cavity to hold the spider,
and in the spider, her eggs. When they
hatch, the larvae will eat the spider
from the inside out, while it’s still alive.

She feels like that spider, paralyzed
and trapped within her own mind, her
body’s obliqueness, her world’s incompleteness.
Once human nature’s seeds were implanted,
in relativity, in awareness, mutations
vibrated, without relevancy, without guilt.

The honeysuckle are fading, aphids swarm
and suck the sap from the dandelion weeds.
The Mourning Dove whose mate was killed
by her cats, last summer, crow-coos
her loneliness, still searching. Aren’t we all
searching? Searching for answers, for peace of mind,
for release of guilt, for epiphany with our souls?
Wanting to become projectile entities
who travel Space and Time? Is there time
to evolve, to solve the ‘Us’ mystery?

There are more branches dead, in the tree
which shades her, than in previous years.
There are gaps in the grass, which are growing
wider, as Spring’s dry season wrings the breath
of life from her every creation.

How ironic.

Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
© Copyright 5/19/05