Path to the Fern Circle

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Path to the Fern Circle


As so many times before the story led us 

to the stack of stones we called a door,

then down the steep descent 

into the woods behind the house,

leveling out at the fern circle, 

that clearing where we usually found 

whatever boon the story had sent us 

looking for. But this time we soon 

found the way choked with Joro spiders,  

a non-native species with thick, 

calculated webs, three-dimensional, 

like air-cages built to snag 

light itself. Ecologists say 

the ecosystem will have to adapt, 

but such integration takes years.

So we could wait, or abandon 

the place, or—though the only thing

thicker is fear, and it sure won’t be fun—

start killing them, one by one.    

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