A Poem for October

The Spider I Saved

There she was, trying to make her way
up up up the slippery slope of the kitchen sink.
With every attempt, she was thwarted,
and with every thwart, she simply
rallied her legs, and tried again.

I had not even had coffee yet,
and there I was faced with a moral
dilemma. To kill or not to kill.
In my half sleep, death by paper towel
seemed a good option.

Dispatch and be done.
But, some part of my frontal lobe kicked in.
Spiders do bite, and yes, they are creepy, but
they are also alive. They ask nothing from me
while policing my house for small insects.

Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I trapped her
with a cup and postcard and escorted her out.
Momentarily startled away from her effort
to conquer the sink, did she wonder where
am I going? What is moving me now?

I set down my makeshift trap on the porch,
lifted the cup. She skeetered off into the grey
dawn of day to build new webs, new empires.
I wished her well and imagined in that moment,
some force some where, was lifting the cup for me.