Watching spiders crawling, emerging into sheer
Sun shimmer, shale-robed,
Leaping bravely from underporch
To perilous rock plain—feeling suddenly, surely,
“Like something in a jar,” as McCarthy said1
Of another aspiring predator—
I try to make sense of death. But moreso
Of life, that one of the mated pairs
The much less straightforward.
What mysterious faith could possibly
Motivate tensed spun legs,
Maneuver round sacs, catch in eager eyes
Fractals of brief sex, promises of shade, thirst for perfect
Sheltered stone with views on larvae?
All those satisfactions of hunters.
They find no purchase in me, yet I hunt
My field and root furrows despite.
My faith too is mute, and yet
And yet I move legs, and live.
The moon was already a quarter ways up. All but day bright. He felt like something in a jar. No Country for Old Men, p 27.