eight legs
I think it’s time to spill. Drippy brain ink spreading blue planets in my pocket. Surely there is something to say about the maple who’s changed into her tie-dye dress in the front yard. Her leaves are taking turns at green, gold, and umber, and the sparrows cannot stop talking about it.
A spider has rappelled from the gutter to the evergreen shrub outside the window. One strand of web splits the glass, and it bothers me a little that it’s not exactly a 90-degree turn from the frame. I want to fetch a protractor and measure its angle. I bet it’s more like 110-degrees. It’s not a triangle; I can tell you that. I have seen enough spider webs to know any spinner knows her angles. This one must be frightfully embarrassed at her shoddy workmanship. Maybe she got distracted (or eaten) and could not finish. I can relate.
I have my own half-spun webs dangling around crevices. The only pattern, the only angle: wide, gaping, trailing-off-edness. Songs that stop mid-bridge. Stories that go quiet mid-sentence. Colors that fade mid-line mid-canvas. All eight legs of me, and I cannot get to the end of the block. Tragic, all this start and stop. Hair-raising (and then falling).
I could take a lesson, maybe, from the relentless forward roll of Season. “Finish what you start, Dear. Shed your leaves, snow, grow, and burn until you shed again.”
I think it’s time to spill.
