Live
and Let Live
that is my motto
and so weeds
with pretty flowers
grow in my garden
wherever they like,
wild strawberries take over
the flower hill.
Sweeping my walk,
I knock a purple-weed flower.
Red beetles rain upon concrete steps.
I watch father, mother, older sister
scurry in the sweepings, then see
the tiniest speck of red, legs invisible
- a baby brother.
From a finger hole in the window shutter,
a wasp stares at me. I jiggle the shutter. The wasp crawls out.
I see the baby daddy long legs after
it is too late.
Three legs run in place,
his body pasted to the ground
I step with my rubber shoe sole.
Behind a sack of earth, I spy the
biggest, fattest,
most colorful spider I have ever seen,
his wife and teenage daughter.
Father and mother refuse to leave.
Their daughter flees.
"You do not know my motto," I tell
her,
"and you don't know my feelings."
I sweep around them, place a fresh
bag
of earth in front of their nest.
Peeking, I see them moving in the
shadows.
For the first time all morning, I
hear
a bird is singing
in the hedge.
© Linda Lockett Eisele 2002