Lee Evans

The black and yellow garden spider hangs
Upon her stabilimentum of silk,
From which her universe irradiates
As she awaits her flying insect prey.
At length the male bestirs himself for her;
She only bides her time for when he comes.
He builds a small web next to hers and then
Begins his mute romantic serenade,
Plucking on the filaments of her web.
But when at last he takes initiative
And climbs the fateful trembling airy stair,
He drops a safety line behind close by,
In the event that his beloved attacks
Before he gets a chance to mate with her:
For only when that deed is consummate,
He slowly yields his spidery will to live—
And then his faithful mate devours him.

She lays her eggs at night upon her bed,
A fabric woven from her writhing bowels,
And wraps them in a silky winding sheet,
And rolls the sheet into a silken ball,
A thousand or more eggs therein to guard,
Hung safely in the center of her web.
And as the weather cools, she waxes weak;
And when the first hard frost breathes out on her,
She dies suspended in her tapestry.
Her children leave the sac in hopeful Spring,
So tiny that they look like motes of dust,
All sprinkled on a trembling silken mesh.
We muse as each exudes its filament
Of silk that stretches on the longing breeze
And carries off the myriad spiderlings
To weave in time their webs of destiny.