Surprise!

August 3, 2012

Warren County Bike Path, Queensbury NY

I would fain improve every opportunity
to wonder and worship
as a sunflower welcomes the light.
The more thrilling, wonderful, divine objects
I behold in a day,
the more expanded and immortal I become.

    HDT’s Journal, August 30, 1856

Ah, there’s just enough time for a quick stroll along the Bike Trail.

I should have left the camera at home, in the interest of walking fast without all the usual stops.
Maybe today I will get some aerobic exercise, for a change.

Of all the common Woodland Sunflowers that line the trail’s edges,
one in particular catches my eye.

It seems to be winking at me !

I stoop close to take a photo.

Then -- suddenly there is movement from under that flap,
and a flash of legs --
I jump back, repulsed –
this flower played a joke on me:

After the initial mutual shock of discovery, Ms. Spider and I gaze upon each other.

She is really quite beautiful, in her own eight-legged way. 

I must appear enormous and strange to her, yet she stands her ground, and gives me, quite literally, the hairy eyeball.