'Ambo' & the Missing Family of Spiders

"Two S. Koreans swept away in Philippine river" 
 "Three dead, six missing as typhoon passes Philippines"

--Headlines from www.ph.msn.com, June 6, 2012

we in our isolation thought

the fog & ceaseless rains

merely meant summer's end

& the start of the monsoon

that meant laundry would take longer to dry

although others said typhoon "ambo"

didn't quite hit land

& dissipated in the seas

& what we were feeling were

its weak formation

the nuisance of a weather kept us indoors

where we waited for word when power would resume

where we couldn't stop fumbling

in the dark for matches or batteries

for the one & only flashlight in a rattling house

when "ambo" exited the country

the shy sun rose slowly over the bamboo grove

& cast light on corners of the balcony's iron bars

where we usually arrange the laundry

on dozens of individual clothes hangers

there on a corner of every bar

clung deceptively frail spiders' cobwebs

i wondered where the mama spiders

evacuated their babies at the height of the storm?

their homes were intact

glittering in the morning mist

& once again in my middle age
with two daughters all grown up

i cried over beauty & frailty

just as intact were the last red blossoms

of the 'ber months' poinsettia 

huddled in pots

intact in the sense that the pots

didn't tumble & spill out their contents

at the height of the lashing rains

a day later i read about people swept away,

fisher folks most probably,

but it was so like me

to worry about the family

of spiders who were my family's counterparts

in the world of fauna & wondered if they were

also washed away by the year's first storm

--Babeth Lolarga

 June 9, 2012

 11: 27 a.m.

Photos by Babeth Lolarga