. . . It’s
heavy work
everyplace,
fighting sag,
winching up
give. It
isn’t ever
delicate
to live.

Excerpt from “SPIDERWEB“ by Kay Ryan

Gosh I am glad to find this wonderful poem by Kay Ryan. It’s how I felt in the wet woods this morning. I am two bodies, walking. This energy, this soul, this music and jabber and eyes on the back of my head. It’s a weight, the strengthening kind, making me strong. All these sounds in my ears figuring things out. My heart goes: find humility. Let go of ego. Be here now. This is what I aim to find at the morning brook. But first, passing this web strung after or during the rain, who knows? Wasn’t there yesterday. I would have seen it, wouldn’t I? The webs find me. I show it to the eyes in the back of my head too. There is delight in this muddy wet. The earth and soil of the wetlands is a sucking muck to my feet. There’s a pleasant chill on my cheeks and his too. No ducks today. But the forsythia in the yard is wild with color and newness and a sprig of it in the hand is worth holding onto. Yellow soft medicine with the rain still on it.

Later, late morning, I get a call from the youngest one. She has sent me an e-mail with her thesis, uploaded, accepted for her graduate degree. She wants me to open it, and look on page 47. I do. Where, in the last line of her acknowledgements she mentions her mother. How she couldn’t have done it without me. Well, that’s one to hold onto for the ages.