In memory of Jon Stallworthy who nurtured till the end
You have to be there at the moment when
The sun works with the milk-thick fog
And both of them are paper-white light.
Things as they are no longer seem the same,
You stand in the field, inside the foot of a rainbow
Looking at fog lifting through the rising sun.
Millions of glistening droplets float by
Leaving your cheeks wet, hair humid
And your breath snagged on a ‘spider-made-star’
As Rosa whispers, ‘etoile’. So that is what’s under the fog:
Spider-made stars. Perfectly symmetrical webs
Of fine silk-like threads hanging on blackberry bushes,
Late pink baby roses, between leaves of trees,
From stem to stem and every branch. And now
The sun turns slightly golden and I see
Delicate parachutes landed between ravaged
Sunflowers’ stalks, domes of white sky-light
As if the field is lit up by a thousand white lamps.
The spiders have worked with the fog: their nets
Are clad in tiny droplets, minuscule pearls, diamonds,
Disciplined, in perfect rows hanging to the threads
That have followed the shapes of leaves, for now
We are looking at trampolines made of spider webs
Drizzle-plaited, finished off with pyramid-like tops,
And here come the double, triple layered iridescent sheets
Of honey-comb-like structures swaying to our breaths.
Then back to spider-made-stars
That flutter in the air holding their glitter
Up in the open fields, half green, half brown.
I have never seen so many nets carrying water light.
October weaves her tapestry on grasses,
Nets on trees, and we run fingers along translucent
Threads to collect the water on our skin,
Touching the miraculous. So much to see
In the fog, as in the last days’ sadness.
The richness that’s around seems deeper
When you didn’t know to look for it, and saw it there
As fog’s offering–a path full of shimmering stones
To help you find your way when you can’t see ahead:
The spider web that hangs to the mailbox
Drawing your mind away from the letter,
Into its calming inner architecture
That depends on just one kind of warmth
Born of a sudden morning chill that makes the vapour rise
From mounds of leaves, and fog breathes rainbows.
October 14-November 12, Prevessin-Vesgnin-Ornex-Moens
–Carmen Bugan