A Wilderness Way

I bumped into one of my sisters this morning. To be more precise, I actually crashed right into her. Did she experience our collision as a disorienting disruption, dizzyingly turning in the wind as her world came undone? Or was it just one more tear she would have to mend, one of those routine inconveniences that are “just part of doing business?” In her eight eyes, I must have been merely another bumbling would-be predator who tore right through her web. Whatever little impression I might have made on sister spider, she almost immediately got back to work. Gnats and beetles won’t catch themselves – though with slightly stronger silk she might well have enjoyed an early retirement after wrapping up this oversized catch. Sister spider, at least this particular one, is a spiny backed orb-weaver ( Gasteracantha cancriformis ). I ran into her while making my way along the edge of the bottomland woods behind my home.   I was too busy re-tracing a trail overgrown with greenbriers