Elegy With Spiders for Michael Macklin

by Betsy Sholl

Six months after you died, spiders fill the field,
gleaming in early sun,

having spun all night their bright God’s – eyes,
those faceted gems, airy prisms

beaming the day’s first light from stalk to stalk —
which soon the farmer will plow under, yes,

and three rowdy shepherds will tear through
like hell hounds wanting to be fed,

but still these spiders turn night’s fog
on their glittery looms, making

and remaking — as you would have said —
casting lines through the shapeless air.