I watched spiders make their webs
Four to five paces apart
North to south along the ficus hedge
Anchored nearest to the green wall
Each two knuckles wide
Street lamp orange undersides
Yellow tiny joints
Each moved quickly
Set to finish its trap before the night settled full

I discovered them while walking
Seeking familiar toxin
And found them
Masters of their craft

The first I saw caught that caught my sight
The furious movement of rear limbs
Catching the stream of silk
Guiding it on its way
Jagged plucking stemming a straight line
Then laying over a guiding wire
And moving on
From four o’clock to eight it went
Then back along the clock’s face
Its red underside patient but swiftly going and pulling along
Leading a tiny line of molten muted silver
Five to eight and back again
Pendulumous and measured geometry
Dancing back and forth

Then I saw the second
South I crept with knees bent low
Shrank a hand’s breadth
Swift and wonderstruck
And it too worked a masterful weave
So similar but when I looked back
I saw the difference
More than size of form between them
Slight as was their difference
Unique minutiae of brown fuzzy backs and brown fuzzy heads
Varying personalities and style
Artisans of the same renaissance

And soon I saw a third
South still and still different
Higher up to catch the light
Still giving light to its neighbor
Who lets the light reach her neighbor

A fourth’s stilled anchor
Taught and shining in the light
Beneath the indigo sky
Highest of them all
Largest of them all

If in the beginning of their dance
Drawing cracked windows in the sky
Nets or webs or sails
I might have seen them
Forming a rainbow arc
A fragment of such a thing
But I did not
My wonder and my mind
The first catch of the night