Spider
Written 10/2/19
Ray Zimmerman

This morning I shared my porch table with a small gray spider, perhaps a quarter inch long. The spider was fully formed, as they are even at hatching. I am tempted to say that it was an adult, given the time of year, but the unseasonably hot days of September make the statement less certain.

The spider seemed indisposed to stay, crossing to the far end. When I interposed my pen in the path, the arachnid raised the foremost pair of legs for a tactile examination. Not interested, the spider turned back toward me.

When I placed an open book in the path, the spider climbed up onto the page, which provided a map of the world. Uninterested in the land masses of North and South America, the intrepid spider crossed the Pacific Ocean, north to south.

Not satisfied with this an adventure, the spider crossed to the opposing page which held a map of the world illustrated with time zones. Continuing its southerly movement, the spider followed the Hawaii/Tahiti time zone which includes a bit of Alaska. The huge land mass of Alaska crosses three times zones, a feat in which it is aided by the convergence of the zones at their northern limits. Greenland likewise crosses three zones, but neither offers competition for Russia, which crosses nine, sharing time zones with Cairo, Baghdad, Dubai, Karachi, Dhaka, Bangkok, Beijing, Tokyo, and Canberra.

My spider showed interest in none of these distant lands, simply traveling across Hawaii and Tahiti. It did not even enter the adjacent Alaska Time Zone or the Samoa Time Zone. I suppose there is something to be said for singleness of purpose.

The Hawaii/Tahiti time zone is, by the way, eleven hours behind Greenwich Mean Time and one hour ahead of Samoa. So far as I could tell, the spider was unimpressed with these facts or the recent travels.  Some people say Grandmother Spider crossed the world and brought back the sun. In that case, I suppose a bit of globe-trotting is not so unusual for a creature so small.  

When I interposed my pen again, this spider happily accepted a ride down to the floor of the porch and went about the business of being a spider.  I felt no revulsion at the spider’s exoskeleton, so different from my endoskeleton, or its venomous bite by which it captures prey. I thought of its similarities to a tick, a scorpion, and a crab, all distant relatives of the spider, with which I avoid contact, but without ill will. They fascinate me and I wish for more time to observe them.

​
 

Satellites
 
When it comes to love, birds take a satellite approach.
Bobolink males give 100 percent of their hunting efforts
to their first nest and their first mate.
 
A satellite female may appear, and then another.
Each builds her own nest,
surreptitiously mates with the male. 
Each subsists on twenty-five percent of the male’s efforts.
The original nest gets fifty percent.  
Later arriving females may receive as little at ten percent of the hunter’s results.
 
By contrast, some warbler species have satellite males.
A strong singer quickly attracts a mate and egg laying commences.
Satellite males build nests surrounding the strong singer’s territory.
Other females attracted to the strong singers voice nest with satellite males.
Twenty-five to fifty percent of the nestlings in satellite broods
are related to the strong singer at the center of the action.
Birds are not at all like humans.

​

​Primal Number
© Ray Zimmerman 2019
 
In an ancient high-rise no longer prime office space,
a tattoo parlor adorns the first floor, sits opposite a shop
where a weaver works at her loom; awaits customers.
 
High atop the building, an unplanned resident builds a nest.
The peregrine feels hunger, jets above a decorative fountain
where a man, dashing home from work gives a wistful whistle,
feeds popcorn to pigeons whose stomachs are better accustomed to grain.
 
The pigeons dare not fly for the falcon descends at 200 miles per hour,
slams a fist into an unwary bird who tumbles to earth.
 
Falcon does not hesitate to rend flesh for she has nestlings to feed.
 
The tattoo artist and the weaver see the falcon, contemplate new artsy designs. 

​Iron Moon
November 13, 2016
© Ray Zimmerman
 
Last night a moon red as hot iron
on a blacksmith’s forge
shone through smoky haze,
threatened the city’s skyline.
 
Trees on every nearby mountain ignited
like strike anywhere matches,
blaze spreading from tree to tree.
 
Headlights of automobiles
bounced along highways,
shone through ash and soot.
 
An arsonist confessed to setting
three of the fires.
The press carried no report of his motives.
 
The insane dance of a burning world
where once the earth was green. 

My most recent project is a bibliography of selected works by Robert Sparks Walker. Here is some of the introductory material. 

Introduction
 
Robert Sparks Walker is best known as the founder of the Chattanooga Audubon Society and for his foresight in setting aside their Elise Chapin Wildlife Sanctuary, popularly known as Audubon Acres. Chattanooga Audubon’s acquisition of the Maclellan Island property during Walker’s lifetime is sometimes added as a brief footnote to that achievement. His literary career began 44 years before the founding of Chattanooga Audubon but is rarely mentioned. The author hopes to preserve a record of Walker’s achievements as a poet, editor, publisher and author, and to provoke new interest his published works.

​Significance as a Writer
 
Robert Sparks Walker began writing freelance articles while still in high school. At age 22, he acquired fifty percent ownership of the Southern Fruit Grower magazine in 1900. He served as editor and publisher of that magazine until its sale in 1921. He served as Nature Editor of Flower Grower 1923 – 1934 and had a weekly nature column in The Chattanooga Times beginning in 1933.
 
His first published book, Anchor Poems, appeared in 1925, followed by a second book of verse, My Fathers Farm, in 1927. Walker had a growing reputation as an author and editor when, at age 53, he published Torchlights to the Cherokees (Macmillan, 1931). The Pulitzer Prize nomination for that book accelerated his career. He spent several weeks examining relevant materials in the files of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (Andover-Harvard Theological Library) to complete Torchlights to the Cherokees.
 
Walker followed Torchlights to the Cherokees with a novel, a collection of short stories, two additional books of poetry, and a series of booklets promoting the City of Chattanooga and economic growth in the city and the surrounding area. He returned to book length nonfiction with Lookout: The Story of a Mountain which begins with the geology of the mountain and continues through human habitation.
 
His final book length work, As the Indians Left It includes charming stories of childhood life on the farm and documents the early days of the Chattanooga Audubon Society and the sanctuary. Local historians have disputed his statements about the history of the property and the log cabin, and artifacts related to Native American occupation of the land, but not Walker’s significance as a conservationist and author. The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation gives an annual award for lifetime achievement in conservation which is named the Robert sparks Walker Award.
 
Walker also hosted a weekly radio show. He produced “illustrated slide talks,” loaned to schools and civic groups, and helped produce at least one nature film. 

  ​Messages
 
In the days of instant messages, there are no editors.
The reader takes the place of writer and editor.
Other readers add their comments immediately.
Advice columns are unnecessary.
Readers pose questions in open forums.
Does anyone know a good auto mechanic?
Where should I shop for hand-made jewelry?
Friends and strangers offer advice.  All sources are 100 percent reliable. 

This historic cabin is generally recognized as the birthplace of Robert Sparks Walker, poet, literary naturalist, and founder of the Chattanooga Audubon society. He and his wife and first born son are buried next to it. 

(c) 2019, Ray Zimmerman
There is a videotape on Facebook of me reading this piece. Here is the text. 

Late August Collage
 
Begin with the yellow flowers of a Jerusalem artichoke. Make strands of its essence, warp and woof, a framework it is.

​Weave in the golden-brown of coreopsis, the pink of coneflower. Add the red of fireweed and you have made a start. Weave in the rich brown feather of a wren, dropped near her empty nest. Eggshells make a nice touch if you can find them.

Hang your tapestry from the branch of a hickory. Let it ripen with the nuts.

When the time is right, add lichen: the gray of old man’s beard, the ephemeral green vessels called pixie cups, the red topped British soldiers.

Let it bake in the August sun and steep in the lightning of sudden storms. It will hide its eyes from the muddy rivulets flowing from the impact of pounding male rain and soften with the nurturing mists of female rain.

Now your tapestry is ready to receive the gentle songs of chickadees and nuthatches. Let the pileated woodpecker drop chips from his drill as he feeds on carpenter ants. A few will stick.

Seek the help of a spider. Her silk will bind the work together. Hang your tapestry on your wall if you must.
When spiderlings hatch from its threads you will understand that it belongs in the woods. This will happen at the time of day when the buzzing of cicadas gives way to the trills of katydids.

Hang it on your porch. Let light from Altair and Deneb illuminate its recesses. It will waffle in the breeze of early morning as bats retire to take their daytime rest.

Ask yourself, have I woven this tapestry, or has it woven me.  

The Chattanooga Writers Guild organized the event, hosted by the Downtown branch of the Chattanooga Public Library. As part of the event, Rhyme N Chat put on an open mic from 12 noon to 2:15 PM. September 7, 2019.