the home of a human being

I like to listen to NPR in the car. This morning, I laughed aloud at Garrison Keillor's poetry selection.

Just as I was about to post this entry, #1 Daughter strode by and announced, "What a big spider." Hanging over the door-post a few feet from my head is a doozy, alright. Bring that vacuum in here. On the double, please.

Poem: "Vacuuming Spiders" by Charles Goodrich, from Insects of South Corvallis. © Cloudbank Books, 2003. Reprinted with permission.

Vacuuming Spiders

I admire their geometrical patience,
the tidy way they wrap up leftovers,
their willingness to be the earth's
most diligent consumers of small bitternesses.

Sometimes at night I hear them
casting silk threads, clicking their spinnerets,
plucking their webs like blind Irish harpists.
I can almost taste the fruit of the fly
like sucking the pulp from a grape.

But when their webs on the ceiling
begin to converge, and the floor
glitters with shards of insect wings
I drag out the vacuum
and poke its terrible snout under the sofa,
behind the radio—everywhere,

for this is the home of a human being
and I must act like one
or the whole picture goes haywire.