The Spider's Web

I am amazed at the small beauties in nature, even along a sidewalk on my way home from town.  I just have to keep looking.

The Spider's Web

The spider's web hung on the deep green needles
of the hedge,
Beaded with dew,
a delicate mesh, fine as cheese cloth.
A silver weaving made overnight
for some spider's harvest,
A beautiful snare.

Why so regular, neat,
spiraling out precisely?
Does the spider know how exact
her engineering?
The threads, working outward,
each rectangle in a circle, matching it's mate,
Each circle, just enough wider to accommodate
the growing radius.

Does she
view the neat lines
the dew drops, turning her work to silver
there,
just where she thought they would
with a sculptor's critical eye

I look at her work
with my amateur artist's eye,
and can not believe
that her only goal
is the death of a blundering gnat
or hapless fly.
as she builds so precisely
on a night
when the dew will work magic
on her fine,
gossamer weaving.