Translucent spindle legs 
glide along a path unseen, 
descending an invisible ladder 
as the weaver spins in mid-air. 
He hovers for a millisecond, 
before silently zipping back up an invisible thread. 
A small, compacted sternum 
baring a tiny brown mark
hangs motionless, and then moves,
And then the weaver scuttles on.
Treading on invisible water,
slipping through those in-between places 
and dark nooks and crannies,
he scurries across arches 
and through old cracks in door frames, 
searching out haunted, liminal spaces 
where non-linear time exists. 
Spaces the human psyche flees from, 
that humans side-step, ignore and avoid, 
but not the weaver. 

The weaver squats alone in a fraction of a space, 
but dominates the entire area;
A dwarf king before moving on. Moving along on swift, glassy limbs, hauling along like luggage
its small, dense, opisthosoma. He searches out openings and seeks out borderlands,until his trichobothria stiffen, those small hairs work much like speakerssending sound waves rolling over him. A housefly is nearby; he spots it but it buzzes awaya cough sounds from the next room, the pensioners chest is bad. The weaver sees the mans cells mutatingand he knows it won't be long now. The weaver understands all of this, he knows that eventually 
all of them cross the threshold. He smells the stench of their dread (their salty perspiration) but can't understand why they fear nature and why change fills them with terror. Spiders understand natures cycles and he embraces shedding his out-grown exoskeleton. A door creaks and he feels it, the weaver feels everything. 
He exists within all of it, centred, and beyond it, on the fringes. 

Warm air stirs around the arachnid, 
this is not the right edge to creep along and so he stalks off. His appendages move again like tiny knitting needles weaving a path towards the perfect spot.At last he halts, this is the place there are many meals to be had here ,
and little to no vibrations,
from the old mans room downstairs. 
He settles in a corner and quickly begins weaving. He crafts his ghostly wall-hanging silentlywith glue-like thread, and he is completely graceful; Moving smoothly, he flows like water,  as he busies himself building 
the worlds most sublime fly trap. And like all great engineers he adds support to his frame
spinning radial lines to hold it taut. Small beads glisten along the net 
like a necklace of fresh water pearls, 
but these tiny pearls will never decorate a mermaids throat. 
No, these are sinister pearls they entice and trap and hold, a deadly but beautiful masterpiece. 

The weavers work is done for now,so he shifts his small mass to the left then heads for a cosy crack in the plaster
above the door.He views his work from afar knowing it will serve him well, he is a wise little world maker, tiny-god. And so the mandala shape hangs stretched between the eaves, a work of art,Its filmy beads glint like water dropletsfrom salty sea spray. But pity those cursed creatures flying on paper-like wings,that tangle in this sticky creation destined to meet an ugly end. The clever weaver outwits them allbecause he knows that if you can't fly,you must master the crawl. And he knows that to tiptoe through the dust and long shadows, 
and tightrope-walk along rims and edges is how you see the unseen ones,and feel the forms of form-less things.The weaver knows that the shadowsand the pain too bestow gifts.The wisdom of the weaver says:
Don't be afraid to toil in the darkness, on fragile limbs
creating something beautiful. 
Trust that when your creation is born
it will sustain you, 
and reflect a light your darkened eyes
could not see."

 © Claire Frances. 2018







© 2016 Claire Frances Lloyd