faerie hankies

faerie hankies glow

lacy white in the meadow

on a foggy morn

Every day I pass the same patch of wildflowers, blind to the invisible spider webs ensconced on the dead stalks. This morning the fog reveals their secret, outlining the delicate strands with sparkling dewdrops so that the silken cups glow like little lanterns in the dim light. As children, we called them faerie hankies, secretive and ethereal, or granny's doilies, like the white lace doilies that decorated every surface in our grandmother's house.
          The spider that weaves this sheet web is even more invisible than its web. About the size of a sesame seed, with black and white striped legs, it hangs upside down between two horizontal sheets, the upper one thicker than the lower one, with the whole contraption suspended from vertical threads of silk. The spider waits in the empty space between the capture net and its own safety net. When a flying insect bumbles into the tangled obstacle course, it tumbles down on the concave mat and gets caught by the spider waiting below.
          When I return home in the afternoon, the sun has burned away the fog and the faerie hankies have vanished. But now that I know where to look, I am able to spot the tiny spider, seemingly suspended in midair between the dead stalks.