Tag Archives: Nature

Turf War With A Spider

Turf War With a Spider

I drape against a picnic table, inhaling
orange blossom perfume thick
on the breeze. With pen poised,
my hand starts scrawling when
in the corner of my sight
I catch perched on my elbow a small
tuxedo with eight legs.

Jerking,
I shake her off; she lands on my knee.
I am Goliath. With a stamp of my foot
she tumbles
to the concrete,
banished.

Moments later a presence pulls me
from my pen. I look down.
She has crawled
halfway up the table leg. One gust
of breath blows the leaf of her body
to the concrete, again.

I return to my words, absorbed, only
to soon find my nemesis at the
table edge. We stare,
eyes to eyes. I’m a behemoth,
but this David is relentless.

Such determination in so small
a creature deserves reward.
I move to another table.

–Kathryn Harper

A Visit With Mother

A Visit With Mother

Playing with the ocean is a high contact sport.
Wrestle a wave, expect
to be tackled, lifted up, tossed aside,
waves sprinting and jockeying each other to shore,
cresting, swapping twelve-foot high fives.

Boys tag icy waves; cries of surprise
compete with seagulls. A toddler in pink totters toward
starlings holding their convention on the sand.
Her face beams as she waves to each bird.

You cross dry sand and it swallows your toes.
The wind slaps and pushes,
scrubs your face, bleaches your mind.
Your eyes sting and weep in the salt air.

You do not come to the beach for tranquility.
You do not come here for shelter,
but to absorb ancient energy,
feel the rhythm of waves in your blood,

swing on the tidal pendulum,
submit to the scrutiny of the bald sun,
gaze at the horizon melting into thousands
of miles of nothingness and possibility.

You come to release your illusions.

–Kathryn Harper