Where is the Spider?

Time spins a web from the tree of life

and we are caught.

Blown like a feather, we cling

as our need gives us strength.

We touch the lazy leaf in awe,

smell the tangy edge of fruited laughter

and long for truth.

Days are sometimes our slow enemy.

The dullness of them

seeps into our lust

and inhibits our exuberance.

Many times a manic dance

spins us out of control,

before we can think of a purpose

we have passed ourselves

and must seek again

what we never found.

We are the umbilicated

tied to the past by a severed cord,

phantom pains 

keep us from forgetting

our beginning.

We are chained to the future

by the microscope of eternity

found in our children.

We throw out a life line

and glean

through the unbearable

coupling of our bodies, destiny.

From the depth of this beauty

we recognize youth

far back on the road.

The mirror mimics our exterior

when inside we realize that youth

has only become less frivolous

and more kind.

There are signs along the path we travel,

these are some I’ve seen:

Singing when your heart is full 

brings sweetness to your voice.

Holding the hand of one

who walks along the river

leads to the appreciation of

little things.

Listening to the message

of the sea,

humbles an overripe opinion.

Embracing in love sets a fire

that will not be extinguished.

Looking inward for the teacher

calms the trembling fingers

of your grasping search.

Laughter emptying into your

troubled soup

sweetens the bitterness and strengthens 

all the essential ingredients.

To struggle against the web

is to be caught more fiercely.

If we are still, listening and open,

we can appreciate the glistening 

of its craftsmanship

and the touch of air

surrounding it.

Peace is fleeting,

found in an instant

when eyelash meets the cheek.

Does the tree of life

concern itself with our struggle?

Tall and sure it holds the web,

but can it protect it from what is

or what will be?

I still have not seen

the spider.

Growing, So Sweet and Treacherous

The tree and that crack
in the sidewalk may be gone,
where I flew like a small creature
made from wind and hair and scabbed knee
down and over the small bump that the root
curved just so for my delight.

I would stop and pull the corked bark
out a little and it seemed it opened
just for me to hide treasures in;
pieces of polished glass,
a lovely smooth pebble,
a four leaf clover.
Somehow I thought as I drove by
they might still be there
waiting my charge
into a new adventure.

The house where I grew up
still stands with dormer window eyes
and a door that is red.
The green lawn, so good for running,
was where I broke my arm tripping on the sprinkler.
Now there is a hill there
with a jungle of delicious flowering plants
and although it is the same
it is many years different.

I wanted to knock and proclaim myself the person
who put love notes to someone not yet arrived
under the eves outside my bedroom window,
I was the one who pretended to eat sandwiches outside,
but instead, hid them in that hedge out front
and made great friends with a cat that liked tuna fish.

Above the garage now
is a beautiful room with lovely windows,
when before it held my butterfly collection.
It was there where my brother sent my first admirer
up the ladder, then pulled it away and made him stay
‘til he was done with following me,
for I was twelve and knew nothing of my sexual power
or the burgeoning heat that had attracted him.

You are soaking my heart with memory...
house…dear house, where growing
was so sweet and treacherous.