grace

- Working outside late this afternoon, when I looked up to see a lemon-yellow moth, fluttering just above a spider's web glowing in the sunlight - just safe, safe for now.  "You and me both," I thought, then promptly walked into a lingering strand, spun between door and chair, not meant for me but for someone slighter and weaker and winged.  Even so, it was surprisingly strong, I thought, tugging at it, feeling how it gave but didn't snap, realizing that it would move with you when you struggled against it, remembering how I'd read that spidersilk, for its weight, is spun stronger than than steel.  Resilience, I thought, grace under pressure.  I raised my hand, and the silvery string gently fluttered away from me, though still stuck to my forefinger, so that I felt for a moment like spider man, blasting webs from my palm.

It is best to be cautious, now, before reaching into the desiccated stalks of beebalm to weed, before wading amid the overgrown rose bushes, before you decide to clip back a bit that shaggy boxwood.  Spiders' webs are everywhere this time of year, hung between every doorjamb and balcony rail, between the slightest break in the branches of a rosebush, forming delicate isosceles triangles from wall to deck; and spiders of all sizes, some small as an ink dot, hang inside them - contemplative, sombre, patient.  Outside, the crickets sing frantically all day.  Ants are sluggish and increasingly distracted, but still diligent in the day's warmer minutes; the mosquitos are easier to smack but still lurk in hope.  The bees, afraid of nothing, will work until the very end.  This season is rushing upon us all, predator and prey and even me (whatever I might be), and we are trying to make it as far as we can in the time we have left.