Joseph T. Lapp

In the woods there are webs. Some we know well, like the orb webs that spiral to the center. Some surprise us on the forest floor, gauzy sheetwebs that taper to a funnel. Some are messy constructs like the cobwebs in the nooks of the trees. But everywhere, everywhere, strands glint rainbows in the sunlight. Stretching from branch to branch, leaf to leaf, twig to twig, they are the trails of passing spiders. Here is a spider now. She raises her abdomen and releases a line into the air. She waits. The line catches. She pulls the line taut, anchors her end, and climbs across. Once across, she ambles on. Behind her the line reads, "A spider was here." So reads the line before, and the line before that. So reads every line in the forest. The forest is a book written by spiders. It reads, "We spiders are everywhere." (Written on the morning of October 18th, 2009, in the woods of Gus Fruh Park, Austin, Texas)

Green and shimmering and fluttering through the air. I follow. It hovers by a leaf, settles, and stills. A lacewing. The lacewing disappears. I see only leaf and nearby leafs and branch and bush. Feathery grasses tickle from below. Among them, a sensitive plant, which I tickle but does not close.     It is not a sensitive plant. Nearby, a scrawny vine of poison ivy, which I do not tickle. Something tickles me. A tiny spider threads a line across my hand. I blow it off into yellow flowers. The flowers nod. The bushes sway in a light breeze. Leafs sway. A fluttering appears in the air, green and shimmering. The lacewing flies away. (Written on October 20, 2018 at Zilker Nature Preserve)

A skitter of motion across the sandstone, and then stillness.  Two lizards clung to the face of the rock, mouths open, panting.  Heat rose from the rock in waves.  One lizard turned an eye back towards the other, readying its legs to run. From downslope, a crashing of rocks.  Hands gripped a ledge, and soon a child pulled himself into view. The boy slapped his dusty hands together.   He stood, and his head of blond hair approached the lizards.  The lizards scrambled up the sandstone wall. The boy looked up, and the lizards froze.  He stared at a lizard, squinting. The lizard slowed its breathing and hugged the rock.  The boy remained still, watching.  Eventually the boy looked down.  He knelt and probed his hands among rocks at his feet. When the boy stood again, he again eyed the lizard.  Suddenly his arm blurred with motion. Crack!   A rock exploded beside the lizard, and the lizard ran. The lizard halted, ...

The Great Bear ambled slowly along, enormous muscles rolling in a mountain of fur. Slowing, slowing, she stopped. She stood there, head hanging low, breathing hoarsely, heavily. Between breaths there was silence. Breath by breath the silence lengthened, until finally the Great Bear lay down and rested her head softly on her paws. Her chest lifted gently and gently fell and then was still. Still and silent. A Fall breeze blew. A fly landed on the bear's body, and then so did another. Hundreds of shiny green and shiny blue flies covered the bear, intermittently taking flight all at once in crescendos of buzzing. Beetles arrived -- carrion beetles, outfitted in purple elytra and sunflower carapaces. They ate fly larvae and laid beetle eggs. Tiny mites crawled off their backs and feasted on egg of fly, even as thousands of new flies emerged from the bear's body and flew away. Rove beetles with massive jaws crawled under the bear's heavy mantle. The mantle sagged and dro...

"Dang roaches, get out of my life!" The old man coughed and coughed. From where he lay on his hospital bed, he pointed his cane at the floor and expertly crunched a cricket. The machine beside the bed exploded in frantic beeping. "Please, you must rest," the nurse said. "That was only a cricket." "Hmph! I hate bugs. All of 'em!" The man's chest heaved, and he gasped a sudden heavy gasp. The machine beeped at the nurse, the nurse called the doctor, and the man passed away. The man woke. He breathed easily, feeling well rested, as if from seventeen years of sleep. It was dark, the air was stale, and it smelled like dirt. "Hmph. Figures," he thought to himself. He began to scratch at the dirt overhead. Progress was slow but steady. Now and then he would pause, look down, and muse, "Yup, shoulda been a hole digger." Finally he broke through the surface into fresh air. After resting, he ambled over blades of g...

I hunkered down in the garden and uprooted a weed. "Unh!" A root nearly two inches thick! An adjacent weed had unbelievable two-foot leaves. I tugged and tugged and up it came, revealing a dozen weeds underneath. I yanked and yanked and yanked. Still more monstrous weeds! Heaving, heaving, they came up one by one. But now there were baby weeds and sister weeds and even grandfather weeds. I pulled and yanked and tugged. "Hmph! Bluh! Hargh!" I didn't see the morning go, and I didn't notice the long shadows drawing. Instead I squatted and lifted and grabbed and shovelled and tugged and jumped. Spitting dirt and raining dirt, I watched arms and legs flail. I watched weeds fly. "Ahg! Unh! Grr!" Unbelievable! This weed had a stalk eight inches thick and it was covered in bark. I whacked at it with the side of my trough. I whacked and whacked and whacked, my grunting now as frenzied as a chainsaw. Finally the behemoth fell. Thunk . The ground shoo...

A gentle breeze blows across the mountain meadow. Waves ripple over the green and yellow grasses. Thistles and Queen Anne’s lace rock quietly from side to side. Small purple flower buds draw circles through the air. A yellow flower also sways slowly to the rhythm, alone among the grasses of the field. The flower shines fiery and effulgent, glowing and radiating like a splash of liquid sunlight. Its petals are long and narrow, and they ride the wind as if floating up and down on waves of water. A bee flits by and leaves a memory of its gentle hum. The bee returns and swings around to a side of the flower, hovers there briefly, and then swings around to the other side. The shifting winds turn the bee's hum into melody. Hovering over the flower, the bee stretches its legs forward, and dips its abdomen to land among the golden petals. In one swift blur, the petals retract sharply from the bee and swing the flower onto the side of its stem. The bee darts backwards and turns itse...

A child dances in the flame The sky is a ruddy flood. Basalt clouds pump brilliant blood. And a child dances in the flame. The ground is a surface of darkness, an empty sheet shaping hill and plain. Fiery footprints lash upon nothing, spontaneous flares quick-to-die. A body races, the body dances, a beating frolic, torchlight lurid. Glowing knees hurl high and down-hammer hard, torso twists, face flashes. The hair strikes out across the clouds, the head thrown back, the hands thrown high. A silhouette is seen in silent laughter. A child dances in the sunset flame. (Written in October of 1992 while sitting on the grass one evening at the University of Maryland, College Park)

A butterfly wakes. Cold air has lifted from weeks of stillness, and the sun is shining warmth. The butterfly is flying. It flies over a dormant land, grasses wintry gold. The green is only sprouting. I am sitting in my yard, breathing the hint of spring -- silent, watching. The butterfly flings over my fence. It shoots past seed heads of gaillardia and bee balm. It shoots across a bed of sleeping lantana and dives into the straw grass beside me. I lean over. A white butterfly nectars atop a head of yellow. Dandelion.