Poem for Saturday because it's still snowing here

Drop down into my spider self,
Where the thin tenuous thread
of attention’s tension uncoils, returns.
Let down the rope, thud--
Creak – into a round stone well, damp smell of water
Lower my seeing sense and soften the hearing
(listening, listening)
into silence - under breath, sometimes awake in the night
no sound
but a shrill, cricket-like noise in my ear,
no, more like Mira described: bracelets tinkling
on the ankles of an ant.
That fine-tuned.
Isn’t it my impatience fences me out?

And what of spiders, their delicate legs and slow
descent from the ceiling to where I live, down here?
Why does it frighten me so, to live at the core of this
listening presence?

Or am I just being clever with metaphor – that impulse
keeps me on the surface, when the water I am thirsty for,
lies deeper…Shh, quiet –

Thoughts slow down, I pay attention,
So careful now not to miss a thing – it’s not
what I tell myself in words – the thing is smaller,
finer that that – I am without sleep, and guidance
comes walking in the door,
I read – ‘poetry as being there’--
Ping! Quest, isn’t it?
Hmm, a life puzzle or maze
unsolved day-by-day, turning corners, sniffing my way
by intuition, even if the mouse doesn’t see the cheese, another sense
tells her it is there – close your eyes, feeling will guide you,
trust the spider sense,
in the tea kettle voice of your alarm
Or the softened touch, pillow soft tears –

Love of words has taken me this far – can I let them go, now?
Who speaks, who listens? No, feels.
Ego crunches underfoot --mask fallen, paper mache facsimile of me
Stepped on! Ouch, then smiles under tears.

Broken.
Open.