Treating with peace

after AE Hines' "Peace Treaty"

AE Hines tells of a spider he finds in the shower that’s as big as a bar of soap. I don’t know why I kept reading the poem after that except that I had to find out if the poet would be OK.

She isn’t the size of my Dove Glow soap, but twice now a spider the color of weathered paper has shown up at my coffee counter. If there were A Visitor for Bear I’d assume she’d want a mug of coffee and a cookie, but this is just a weekday on the first summer I don’t have to race home to make dinner and then drive somebody somewhere. There’s no more soccer practice and Harper gets herself to swim. Everyone knows where they’re going and how to get there.

I will not kill the spider. I won’t even considering moving her (AE Hines calls it '“displacing” which adds to why I won’t move her) because the thought makes me sad, so I just stand there and think about my situation.

I don’t know how he does this, but AE Hines decides to take a shower while the tarantula sits there. “I think, not my shower today, but ours.” This is bravery at its finest and I remember the act of the poet while I’m watching the spider, frozen, on my Nespresso machine. I decide this can be our coffee counter today, and not just mine. Just stay away from the grinder, I think. And stay away from the coffee, fresh in the filter, most likely looking like a soft place to land. You will drown and you will burn up and I don’t know which will come first.

Outside, Jesse and his friends play golf as they do twice a week. The course surrounds our home and squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, and unfortunately skunks crusade around and often set up camp underneath our backyard deck. The critters mostly stay away during golf nights. Once though, I watched as Jesse and his golf partner stopped their game to see what they could do to help a fallen birds’ nest, eggs still in the center, uncracked. They circled it slowly, careful not to get too close.

AE Hines says each of us must make a home between “curious and afraid” and I remembered that line while I watched the spider and I think the spider watched me and I thought of Jesse and his friend trying their best to help and not destroy a mama bird’s heart.