Another Meditation

Suddenly, there was a tiny spider
creeping across my floor.
I know she existed there
before I noticed her,
but to my attention,
she popped there
from somewhere else.
"You know you can't stay,"
I said.
She stopped moving
as if to listen.
"You know you must
go outside."
She put out one toe
as if to escape.
I saw a bottle in the room
and a magazine.
I could capture her with these.
When I turned back to her
with my implements in my hands,
she was moving faster
toward a gap in the molding.
"Don't be afraid. Watch your toes,"
I told her.
How would it feel to see
this huge creature approach,
put tall glass walls around you?
"Would you like to live
in my gardenia?"
She lifted her feet,
all eight, one by one,
as I slid the magazine in.
Politely.
"What about poppies?
Would you rather poppies?
The gardenia may be crowded."
She slid the length of the glass,
scrabbling.
"Sh. It's going to be okay,"
I sang as if to a frightened child.
A damp breeze touched my face
as I opened the front door,
slipping on my furry slippers,
so like her black feet.
"The little stone temple?
How about there?
Don't think anyone
lives there yet."
And I put the bottle upside-down
against a river rock
next to the tiny temple
so she could walk back up
the steep neck of the bottle.
A new home, damp and cooler,
but certainly more bugs than inside.
She can live in a little house,
a temple, a monastery, a convent.
She can live a contemplative life,
catching bugs in her own home,
leaving behind a tiny threaded ball
of hope when she dies.
Much better than a heel
and a paper towel
and being dumped, flattened,
into the garbage.

Thank you for listening, jb