crazy, jumping spider

I open my eyes from meditation and my gaze is immediately drawn to movement on the windowsill in front of me. Wild, spinning movement. An insect? Some spastic fly?

It pauses long enough for me to discover that it's a spider. Then it breaks into its wild dance again: hopping inches into the air, spinning, hitting the window, running along the sill, leaping back into the air. Was that a somersault? I'm starting to laugh at the hip-hop arachnid, assuming this to be some joyful celebration of the sunrise, when it leaps one final time, lands on its back and is still.

It's legs slowly curl into its body, never to move again.

Was this a dance of ecstasy? Of agony?

an offering

This cottonwood tree
offers herself to the wind.
Her whisper, Your word.