Ground Zero

Just outside of my window it's raging
The confusion and chaos of war.
The legs and the corpses are piling
The abdomens drained of their gore.

The bodies are sere and discarded
The lives of a hundred or more
All tattered and matted or bundled
No sign of their life from before.

And up in the corner I see her
The cause of this plunder and gloom
From out of the shadows she ventures
The spider is tending her loom.

Copyright©1999 S. Grieve

Ballet

Autumn's prelude
Arrives with the subtle change of afternoon light
Embracing an erratic dance
Of delicate wings.
From decaying logs beneath the duff,
Amber termites scramble
To begin their tremulous flight.
First one,
Then three,
Then finally a bustling host,
Wings newly flexed and fragile, fluttering into light.
Carelessly
They flit
To have their frail wings rent,
Small Isadora scarves
On the spun wheels
Of awaiting fat chocolate spiders
With cream banded legs.
Or crash land,
Hurriedly discarding their wings, as if ashamed
They are not innately
Creatures of the air,
Then scurry,
By twos
For hidden places
Where a novice troupe will make an aerial debut
Next summer's end.

Copyright©2000 S. Grieve

The end of summer on the southern coast of Vancouver Island is heralded in small ways and by two creatures, the Termite and the Orb Spider. When they appear, I know that the season is reaching its end and except for precious few deceptive hot days and warm nights in September, Autumn is on its way.

Spiders, spiders everywhere, from the Orb spiders' classic web outside the front door, to the wispy stuff, that unseen, unknown denizens use, to decorate the corners of my house, brushed away in the day, to return the next. Or as in my first poem, in the corner of my kitchen window last year, retained and watched despite the fact that it grossed out my daughter.

As yet, I haven't heard the shuffle of a solitary Wolf Spider on the floor beside me late at night, but when I do, I will know that the rains have come in earnest.