If there were not a sinew for every daughter in the village, a home would seem much further, because the silk string that sent them out was the same that had always led them back, constituting unique and unbroken avenues. That is not to say that the sons of the unnamed place, albeit more carefree in this concern, don’t also possess the twisting strand, secured, in several knots, to the wrist of each child before they are too old to know that it has not always been there; the other end feeding from the web of the town itself, a great tangle of the lace-like structure appearing as one might, often in a lightless corner of the cellar or along the beams in the barn, here reaching out through a decrepit stone well in the town square where curious little spiders spin their fluids endlessly into that air hardened rope; men and women making use of such production to join their children from the wrist to the eternal weaving of spiders, which itself is connected to homes, earth, flora of the region that one scarcely knows all the names of, and each other person, although when they look at the sky they look in exasperation, as it lacks the physical makeup required here, yet it can still be seen and, they feel, is a necessary part of life growing up in the hamlet.

       In a few short years, the children are instilled with the qualities that comprise a community, but grow, as all do, to eventually long for the unknowable lands of far away. There are now many young girls and boys encountering this exploratory phase, departing by various routes and revealing, as can be seen from the air as the sinews tense but do not break, something like the spokes of a bicycle tire, all calling the centre of the wheel, that old watering place in town, their birthplace. Of course, very rarely, a taut string would slacken, and upon no arrival, pulling it home, the father would see that their child was lost, and experiencing the many mixed emotions of a parent in such a state, would solemnly and not without breaking the hearts of onlookers, bow his head. But this was a rare occurrence, usually a person would carry that connection with them forever, forging new meaning and values with their free arm while persisting through the soft friction of the bound wrist.

       We speak about webs, those sinewy structures formed by spinnerets and if viewed on a much larger scale, one can perceive between the first village, and now hundreds of others, a potent network, lines of life drawn between places, fixed to the experiences and ethos, leading a person back, inexorably, home.

 

David Newson has studied writing, photography, and design at Ryerson University in Tronto. He is a newly published author of essays and prose poetry.

Copyright © 2013 by David Newson