How Is It To Be a Spider? - April 13 2021

 

How Is It To Be A Spider?

April 13 2021

 

There's a small black spider

on the shower wall.

 

Where I also saw him yesterday.

 

A small efficient creature

who goes without eating

and is content to sit still,

an object lesson

in the conservation of energy.

 

I am not a Buddhist,

indiscriminate

in my reverence for life.

I swat mosquitoes

whack houseflies when they land.

Eat meat,

cellophane-wrapped and sanitized.

Cross lawns recklessly,

crushing all the animals

of a lesser order of magnitude

that conveniently go unseen.

 

But cannot harm this spider.

 

I redirect the spray.

Observe him, at eye level.

Imagine how it is to be a spider,

and how he found his way

to this unlikely place

of soap scum and porcelain.

And wonder if the Buddhists have it right

and my karma ends up wanting

and I return as a spider

in another life.

 

What is it

that privileges our kind

over any other?

And should I, in a moment of inattention

or from some misplaced sense of personal space

dispose of this unassuming creature

inconsequential as it is,

will I be diminished by my act,

experience regret,

consider the suffering?

 

Will I feel a twinge

at how small and defenseless

I also am,

standing there naked

in the hot cleansing spray?