She is so very industrious for one so very small. I am in the courtyard trying to work but not, because the Fall colors all around me are much too distracting. She, the little spider, has been attempting all afternoon to connect my laptop to the brilliant red branches of the Japanese maple above me. She will not be persuaded otherwise. Each time I gently scoot her off the laptop, she returns moments later to reclaim her spot at the top of the screen. From there, she oh so delicately, lifts her tail and casts her filaments out on the wind. Thread after thread wafts across my arms and head and hands as I type. In the autumn light they glisten just this side of being invisible. Then she pauses, considers it could seem, her work. She scurries along the top, senses the air, creeps down a bit towards the brightly lit screen and then retreats to think. Then at some perfect moment known only to herself, lifts herself again to cast forth yet another thread.

What an act of faith that must be. Or is it perhaps knowledge....

A noiseless patient spider

I marked where on a little promotory it stood isolated,

Marked how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,

It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself.

Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my soul, where you stand

Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spherees to connect them.

Till the bridge you will need be formed, till the ductile anchor hold,

Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

Walt Whitman