Harvest

Gillian Neimark

Spiders swarm in the icy dark
like parishioners warming themselves
under the eaves of the shed

I tickle their tangles with a leaf
from the maple that begins in my neighbor’s yard
but ends in my own

And it’s like poking a jellyfish
the whole congregation throbs
until a single spider scuttles across the flashing

One leg lofted like a flag of surrender
But no enemy arrives,
Only a quilt of peace

The spider wraps its other legs around
the rain gutter and climbs
into a cape of starlight

How I love all fettered living things
cows, pandas, daredevil pigs, orangutans
that flee captivity and kinship, barreling into the night

alone, stopping only when they sense
safety, to sleep
like a prayer beneath the moon.

The Science

The poem is inspired by the perennial conflict for many species between communal or group behavior to enhance survival, versus breaking off and going it alone--from slime mold to ants to humans. Harvestmen or daddy long legs are arachnids known for clustering for warmth and safety from predators. New research shows sociality exists on a continuum. Here the speaker observes one harvestman break free from the group, to ‘save’ itself from a predator, and then aspire to climb towards the sky; inspiring the speaker to contemplate other communal species such as cows, pigs, or pandas, that made great escapes to save themselves from slaughter or zoos. In fact, the speaker, too is alone and yet connected, via the bower of the neighbor’s maple tree.

The Poet

Gillian Neimark (she/her) is an author of adult and children’s fiction and nonfiction. She has published poetry in Cimarron Review (nominated for a Pushcart 2021), Construction Literary Magazine (finalist in contest 2020), Blue Nib, The Rumpus, Aeon, Los Angeles Review, Borderlands, Massachusetts Review and Scientific American’s Meter column. Her picture book, The Hugging Tree, has over fifty YouTube read alouds. and has been featured in numerous school programmes around the world.

Next poem: light and dark of it by Jean Bohuslav