Poetry and Spiders
Excerpted from my June 2024 newsletter.
Poetry
Spiders get a bad rap sometimes. They’re often seen as weird or creepy, or vilified in stories and nursery rhymes. But I’ve always loved spiders and found them to be cool and fascinating. This poem started with describing an experience of coming into contact with a kind of spider I’d never seen before, which led to something deeper.
For the love of spiders
Today, pulling weeds in the garden,
I saw a spider whose
abdomen and head and legs
were bright green,
the same shade of plant
I’d just wrested from the ground.
I let out a little gasp
as the wind pressed through
the grass’s spindled seed heads
and I felt a familiar wonder
bloom within me, the thought
I have NEVER seen this before,
which comes if I move slowly enough
to let myself get drenched in surprise,
and suddenly the spider became
all the things I don’t know yet,
climbing the wooden fences
at the edge of my brain,
woven so delicately with mystery,
poise, dew just after rain.
And I thought of all the
photos of spiders
that friends and neighbors
have shared on Facebook and Nextdoor:
Look at what I found in my house,
what should I do with it?
The commenters always have the same chorus:
Kill it! It’s definitely a Brown Recluse!
while my scientist friend and I patiently
ask them not to,
point out at least 5 observable differences
between their spider and the Recluse,
explain that there are over 3,000
species of spiders in North America
and Recluses don’t even live in this part of California,
tell them
it’s probably a Callobium
who are so fond of wandering inside come autumn,
resist giving a lecture on how
when you say “probably”
in science it means you’re actually pretty damn sure
but want to leave some room in case you’re wrong.
And I thought there it is again––
how easily we press danger
on the innocent, on what we don’t know.
How many people have been killed
for looking like a threat
when they had done nothing wrong,
when they were just existing in their body,
how quickly suspicion rises when
we’re not curious enough.
The swiftness with which
we reach for hate.
How the gun is grasped
before one word is spoken.
How the first sentence of
every Google search preview
about every kind of spider says
whether it is venomous or not.
I, who have loved spiders since I was 10,
looked for them everywhere,
studied their webs in wonder,
am asking you to move more slowly.
I want every person you ever meet
to wear a necklace engraved with the words
You have never seen me before, take tender care.
I want to replace all of the sentences
about all spiders with that sentence.
I want the message to look you right in the face
so you remember to treat everyone like something
bright and green and new,
worthy of your slow attention.
Even the spider at the corner of your closet.
Even someone you were told to fear.
Even your best friend or aging mother,
who you think you know
but have never actually seen before
as they are on this spring day,
so full of pollen and dew.
When I’m writing poetry I’m always trying to get caught by surprise, and one of the most reliable places I find surprise is in being outside. When I slow down to notice, there’s always something new, even in a very familiar ecosystem or environment. The grasses and their seed heads look a particular way on this day, at this phase of drying after the rains. The light shines through the leaves at an angle that’s emblematic of this season and this place. There are far more questions about the workings of plants and animals than I’ll ever have time to ask or explore. I love exploring some of those questions through poetry.
The sensation in my body and mind that goes along with I have never seen this before or Wow, I’ve never thought about that is so joyful for me. It’s one of the main reasons I keep coming back to poetry.
Thanks to Verse-Virtual, a wonderful online journal and community, for publishing this poem in their most recent issue.
Spotted around the yard: Spider webs
Whenever I see spider webs, I take a moment to pause and observe them. They always bring me joy. They’re exquisitely constructed, their different patterns and shapes meant for catching different kinds of insects and filling different niches in the ecosystem. They shine in the light and hold drops of water on misty mornings. I look for them in any landscape, knowing they’ll reliably bring me into contact with joy and wonder. I also find spider webs in surprising places: the crevasses of bark in a tree trunk, between my windshield and rear view mirror, where it somehow manages to stay put after hurtling down the freeway, and once, inside every single empty acorn cap on an oak tree. Take a look for spider webs around where you live!
And if you’d really like to nerd out and learn more about how different kinds of spider webs function to catch different kinds of flying, falling, or walking insects, check out this outdoor education student activity, co-developed with my colleagues at the Lawrence Hall of Science.
