"Our World as a Spider's"

Have you ever stopped to consider the amazing enormity of what spiders accomplish when spinning their webs? Have you ever wondered what that experience would be like for the onlooker, if the spiders were the same size as we humans? Well, here is your first chance to imagine with your mind's eye what that might be like, TO SCALE.

Enjoy!

Our World as a Spider's

Imagine if a chore now, with satin,
were to weave a net over Manhattan,
That's a job for Araneus cavaticus,
the friendly barn spider out back'v us,
if you were her size and her world were yours...

That's an odd premise for a story,
yet maybe some nuggets we'll quarry,
if we listen real closely,
using mind's eye mostly,
we may understand the enormity of her chores.

Start near the top of Empire State Building,
look down on streets that the sunlight's gilding.
Feel how she feels as she awaits the plunge,
absorbing your fears, just as she-- like a sponge.
Studying her destination... so far she can't see it.

She begins on the seventy-sixth floor,
swinging out in the wind she will soar,
hundreds of feet down and thousands of feet out,
buffeted, twisted...not quite sure of her route.
To land at ninety miles per hour on rough grout.

Somehow she avoids being crushed as she rushes,
down one of the Queensborough Bridge trusses.
Ties off at the bottom her first anchor wire,
hand over hand she climbs two miles back and higher,
To the place where she started, to do it all over.

Catching her breath for a moment,
she ponders her next great bestowment.
To Columbus Circle she decides
must be the next path that she glides,
To tie off once more at the feet of the explorer.

When at last all her anchor wires are in place,
She must fill it all in with skill and grace.
Up and down and around the town,
A miracle of construction, renowned.
The greatest achievement in all the wide engineering world.

(At Amity, 12.17.16)