Hedge Life






Overnight the spiders had washed their webs and hung them out to dry on the hedge.

I imagine spiders with pegs, with silk aprons and peg pockets and curlers in their hair.
While the webs blow on the line they brew pots of coffee and settle at a table with a piece of bluebottle toast.

But the butterflies! They seem drunk on life, bumping in-out of leaves, slurring their flight, waving their bright wings. Have they been dancing all night? Are their shoes all worn through?

They will knock over the spiders’ best china, barging about like that.

The spiders seem stoic about it.
Life is a gamble, they say, and thumb through their cookbooks.




Comments

Dixie@dcrelief said…
Love this and now, I want a cup of coffee, Lisa!!
12 September 2015 at 10:15
Geo. said…
I love your imaginative tableau. Nearly stepped on a huge wolf spider in the pumphouse last night. Caught her with a cup and card and set her under the hedge. Spiders are peaceful neighbors but do like to visit indoors unannounced.
12 September 2015 at 20:28
Lisa Southard said…
I'm drinking coffee now but not brewed by spiders :-)
13 September 2015 at 09:30
Lisa Southard said…
They like to surprise us. They favour our bathroom as a hangout and I actually feel lonely if there's no arachnids to chat to while I shower. My social life is odd...
13 September 2015 at 09:37
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Candle Lit

Image
We live by the light of those we love, whether they are here or gone. That light is inextinguishable. To have the light and not the company is an adjustment process we call grief. Loss is a shadow, equal to the light. We adjust not to lose the shadow but to see both. Hard to bear - yet without darkness, light cannot show its full wonder. Let us look after each other, then, and value our days, our company, and live to leave vast shadows, and understand that pain is a strange gift, a tender, haunting, purposed gift. And if you are grieving: let your tears flow, let your anger shout, let yourself plead and deny and feel terrible: it is not an easy process.  Know that other people know grief.  Know that other people are hurt to see you grieve.  Know that love is a fundamental response. There is no time limit to this adjustment process. No right or wrong way to feel. One day you will stand back and see that the shadow is proof to the strength of the light, a
Read more

The Everyday Portrait Habit

Image
Outside the clouds tremble with fine rain. It drops from them sparsely, clearly mocking my decision to hang the washing indoors. I have the windows open. I don’t mind. It occurs to me that I take each day as raw materials from which to construct a portrait of myself, and I like this idea. It shows me the magic of everyday things. It isn’t too grand, it allows for unassuming - it allows for all the variables. Some days are daubed in turbulence and now they are not bad days but in fact part of a series of studies; my moody phase, my this-is-overtired phase, my shadow sketches; some are gleefully oversaturated, glitter-spattered, sequinned-and-celestial. Each day is subconsciously coloured in uncountable shades, textured with everything I see, touch, hear, taste, or smell; has one or many points of interest, it is as sparse or as crowded as I choose. Today I am a kitchen maniac, cooking up coq au vin, pate, stock, lentil curry, chocolate sauce, cheese sauce, roasted and steamed vegeta
Read more

Eulogy For Dog

Image
We had wanted a puppy and while at 10 months old she was not quite that, we saw her in the rescue home and we knew she was right for us. She was a liver and white Springer Spaniel, real name Midi (not too big, not too small) with a slender, tentative form. I respected her privacy so online she was known as Dog- many of you, Dear Readers, have watched her grow up with us, and will be sorry to learn that her adventures have ended now: please read on, come with us, it will be okay. The hesitancy young Midi Spaniel held towards her new home was reserved for indoors. Outdoors she was absurdly reckless, usually clumsy. She pelted over barbed wire, through thorns, jumped five bar gates; she threw herself into the sea, the river, the lake, the muddy puddles, rolled merrily in dung- she hated the bath. She did not much care for the company of other dogs, though with persistence she learned tolerance, and once fell in reciprocal love. She adored children. Children could be trained to play fetch
Read more