The Wolf Spider

A long time ago, when the tallest trees in the forest were seedlings;

There lived a striking soul.

He loomed and loped, dragging forest mist.

His shiny moon coat rippled.

Unlike any other soul, he ignored their polite greetings.

He had nothing to say and heard nothing they said.

Though they always saw him…he barely noticed them.

He seemed to be looking somewhere else…for someone else.

His burning gaze could raise the forest to the ground.

It followed the deepest grain, seeking every branch.

Dispersing into a thousand leaves all shifting and stirring.

And behind those leaves his search would end, and begin again…

…The way they always do.                        

For behind the stirring and shifting was her.

The one who picked the lock and opened his heart, to steal?

No, not to steal, to put all these things inside; love, terror, grief, pleasure, rage, kindness…and things that do not have names.

Now, standing far beneath her and with a full heart, he cries out,

‘You! You did this to me… you put this in my heart…it’s too heavy,

I’ll drop it, it will break …your voice touched me, I love your voice, and now I love you. It hurts…and I am afraid.’

Without warning her many voices poured from the trees and covered him.

‘Then give me something back’ she replied.

His fear of the unknown was calmed only by its safe distance.

He whispered desperately ‘I could run now, even with this burden I could…’

But the voices ran down his back like fingers. They clung to his skin.

‘Give me something back.’

‘What do you want?’ he trembled.

‘Half’

‘Half?’

‘Half of what I have given you.’

The wolf’s heart thundered and he was sure it would shatter, spilling its contents…then she would have it all.

‘I’m coming down.’ She told him.

‘No!’ he panicked, ‘Not yet!’

‘You are still afraid?’ .

Silence... Only the sound of breath inhaled and held for too long…

‘Shall I come down?’ she spoke again.

And on the out breath came his words…

‘I do not think I would be so afraid of you, if you stayed behind those leaves and spoke softly to me about the way you look’.

But the spider being impatient was already on her descent, and as her dark body spiralled silently towards him, he heard glass splitting.

As she unfurled endless legs from her soft round abdomen the wolf fell upon his belly scraping frantically at the spilled contents of his heart.

He could not breathe or see, tears and dust filled his eyes…

‘I don’t want this! I don’t want it!’ he sobbed hysterically, trying to separate the love from the pain, the passion from the fear.

And all the time the spider hovered there. He hadn’t noticed her. She’d been deftly picking up the pieces, half the pain, half the elation…

When the spider had finished, she kept very still, observing his crying body.

They stayed like that all afternoon, until the moon came round again; and in its light she spun silk thread from her store and made a cloth; with it she wiped the dirt from his eyes and mouth, while he lay, drained.

She did this through the night, so occupied with caring, that she did not notice his amber eyes flicker. His voice startled her.

‘Thank you’ he said.

‘We are different.’ she replied, ignoring his gratitude.

And just before falling asleep he said,

‘We are more than that.'