spiderlings ovenbird All winter I watched. Six silk orbs stuck to the window on the other side of the glass. Three arachnid guardians clinging to life through the season of wind and rain, bodies pressed to the soft moons of their fate. I missed the moment of unfettered flight and found six sunken purses, the life within already scattered, the mothers gone, their role fulfilled. I felt the loss of being denied the chance to say hello and goodbye to the lives that waited through all that dark and cold to meet the spring. But there! In the topmost corner, tucked almost out of view, five specks barely larger than an apostrophe, with their forelegs the curling tail of a breath’s brief pause. “Salutations,” I said, because we all know that’s how you greet a spider, and I thought one foot waved, ever so slightly, in my direction, before I lost sight of even that small life, off into the arms of the day. To be held or to be harmed, no one can know. 260504 what's it to you? who go blather from