Morning Augury
The fog this morning is a kind of thinking
with the body. White space between
known things, like this spider’s web
I almost walked through, now trembling
with dew, each drop a lens refracting
what’s left of last night’s grief.
Strange how we imagine comfort
descends, as if grace were hierarchical.
As if we weren’t already
swimming in it, this soup of almost-
invisible threads.
Yet never saw how morning builds
its own temples from broken things,
this eight-legged priest weaving light
from yesterday’s abandoned plans.
My finger touches
one strand and the whole web shivers.
Is this not also prayer?
What the spider knows, emptiness
is structure too. Each morning
she begins again, spinning theories
of survival from her own body.
I watch her work the fog
into silver, into scaffold, into
a net for catching light.
Last week, I wanted to ask my mother
about sustainable grief. I think
of this web’s tensile strength,
how it cradles dew without drinking it,
how the spider’s hunger
makes architecture possible.
Some mornings I too must weave
my own consolation from thin air.
See how the spider repairs her tears
with patience, how she transforms
empty air into geometry, into trap,
into crown. Some days we must steal
our comfort from the morning’s teeth.
-Stafford Challenge 2025


