"Arachnophilia"
Published in the tiny journal & 3rd place in "A Bug's Life" competition
Arachnophilia
I admit, I don’t love all spiders. Some give me the creeps with their uncanny speed and extreme jumping abilities. But many are lovely, like orb weavers.
We have a basement in our house, and a type of slender, spindly spider lives down there with us in abundance. I just let them be. Yes they cause a build up of webs in corners, and yes, they are probably happily living under the bed. As they coexist along side us, I have the opportunity to watch them and their daily habits, presumably like they watch us and ours. Sometimes they move into the ceiling corners of our shower, and this is how the poem “Arachnophila” came about.
I had jotted down a couple of poems about these shower spiders over the course of a 100-day project. (A google search informed me were some kind of cellar spider.) The poems didn’t feel complete on their own so I merged them together into the poem’s final form.
The poem itself is a reveling in a simple observation about the arachnids we share a space with, and a bit of light musing on the urge to remove all signs of life from our personal spaces (except house plants and pets, of course).
I’m thrilled to share my poem “Arachnophilia” was chosen as the 3rd place poem in the tiny journal’s summer contest '“A Bug’s Life”! The tiny journal staff left the sweetest most thoughtful note about my poem, which gave me lots of warm and fuzzy feelings!
Currently reading: Pure Color by Sheila Heti
Just finished: The Guncle by Steven Rowley (for a nice, light summer read)
Recent internet search of note: Dix Park Sound Bath
One of my local parks has all sorts of free events. The sound bath piqued my interest but sign ups fill up fast so putting an alarm on my calendar to try to get into the next one.