Looking Out the Morning Window

Gray day.
Heavy clouds
overhead and within.

Four deer
emerge from the woods,
approach my house --
opening all the doors.

Once again, it is beauty/delight/awe that saves me, that reminds me there are always larger-than-human mysteries.

For almost two months, I have been delighting in this exquisite palace, built between screen and pane near the table where we eat.

A hammock platform stretches the width of the window. In the upper righthand corner a small, densely woven cave provides the weaver with a safe den above the elaborate architecture of the main web (into which I’ve never seen the spider descend.)

Since I’ve seen the spider only from the side I cannot tell which species he or she is, but her web looks most like that of a “curtain spider.” Somehow the application of a human-made name or classification doesn’t matter to me. It is the mysterious beauty and complexity of her creation that intrigues me. She is an artist, one I can only envy and applaud.

Cooler weather is coming. The left side of the tunneled area has been slightly damaged by wind and heavy rain. But still she was there this morning — another opener of doors in my world. I wish I could magically enter her tunnels to discover how they interconnect, to see where they might lead me.

I keep looking.