GASTERACANTHA CANCRIFORMIS

(SPINY BACK ORB WEAVER)

 

What a beauty

Watched her spinning a web

For several months

After Hurricane Milton

Exited Florida

I left the evacuation shelter

Checked her first thing

Wow! How’d she manage to hang on

Web remaining intact

With a couple of captured flies

Had to rub my eyes

Because despite the fence blown down

And my favorite Norfolk Pine split

And my Kali dog statue upended

The spiny back survived

My Kikimora

The Slavic spider woman

Weaving her webs of fate

Yet guarding the hearth

As long as we sweep and

Never deviate

From the importance of shelter

But as far as the future

Who knows when Kikimora

Will snip the web

That wobbles in the wind

Of time and change…

 

© 2024 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE:  Kikimora’s hearth and home

 

 

 

COSMIC TREE

 

KEYS, CRYSTALS, AND COINS

Kept in canvas bags

Resembling cartoon robbers

Clutching bank money in

Sweaty fists

Not decorative like mojo pouches

Just a part of life’s archetype

 

Keys of knowledge

Portals of passages to where?

Crystals decorating

Fossil records

Striations, vibrations

Coins, money, yes

But also commemoratives

Trolley tokens

Silver and gold

Bronze and tin

 

I drag these bags

For survival

For memory

For adventure

For mystery

A recurring dream

Or do I feel them buoying me up

Or dragging me down

 

Maybe it’s like the

Tree of Life

Trees of deep green leaves

Roots scuffed by my combat boots

As above, so below

What do I truly know

Always had an outsider status

Time too short

Just trying to make sense

Of connections between earth and sky

Make sense

Before I die…

 

© 2024 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Tree of Life