Friday Writings #191: Small But Beautiful

  

Hello again, dear Weavers of Words.

Recently our local art gallery had an exhibition of spiders (who are also weavers) – a particular kind of spider called Maratus or Peacock Spiders, which are very tiny, about the size of a grain of rice. They were photographed by Maria Fernanda Cardoso using special techniques to magnify them greatly, showing their incredible beauty. They also dance! That is, the colourful males do, to attract the females. 

Google explains: 

The photographer most known for capturing images of Maratus spiders, also known as peacock spiders, is Maria Fernanda Cardoso. Her photographic series, titled "Spiders of Paradise," focuses on these tiny, vibrantly colored Australian spiders. The series is part of a larger exploration of the intersection between art, science, and nature, showcasing the unique beauty and sophisticated behaviors of these creatures. 

Cardoso's work is not just about photography; it also incorporates video and installation, further highlighting the Maratus spiders' mating rituals and overall place in the natural world. Her collaboration with Geoff Thompson, a scientific imager at the Queensland Museum, has resulted in detailed, magnified photographs of the spiders, revealing intricate details of their anatomy. 

These spiders were also featured nationally on a recent TV episode of Gardening Australia (Friday 8 August) where a young naturalist explored them. If anyone has access to our ABC iView, you can probably still catch that program for a while.

Here are a couple of my own photos of the Cardoso photos, taken at Tweed Regional Art Gallery (where it is allowed so long as one doesn’t use flash). 

 

 

 

For your optional prompt this week, I’m asking you to write about something small but beautiful. (You may choose to write of these spiders, if you like – even in these particular photos, which would make your piece ekphrastic.) Alternatively (or simultaneously) you might like to present us with a piece of writing which is itself very small and also beautiful.

Guidelines: 
Old or new writings, poetry or prose, on prompt or not – your choice.
369 words maximum (excluding title and notes).
One post per person, and link to it at Mister Linky, below.
Please look at what others submit and leave them some encouraging comments.


A suggested form –

I’ve just caught up with the fact that there is now a thing called flash poetry. Some writers use it as the new name for prose poetry in general. Others insist that it is a distinct kind of prose poetry, and must be characterised by ‘flashiness’: emotional intensity, immediacy, sharply vivid imagery, the capturing of a moment rather than a narrative. 

It need not be as short as a piece of flash fiction or such verse forms as haiku and tanka. But brevity and conciseness are features. And it is set out as prose, not in lines of verse.  Here, used with permission, is a brand-new example by my dear friend and soul-sister, Texas poet, muso and artist Connie Williams, whom I met on my poetry tour of Texas in 2006:

Here is my wish list:
A Santa Clause wish list to the magical man himself, like Daddy: I’m gonna be a gold girl now list, tell me it’s not too late list, I want my piano tuned and regulated, I want to play Debussy with my passion Clair de Lune and have the moon rippling across my living room. I’ll pull back the curtains and only the shadows will hide the beams as my fingers follow the notes already imprinted on my mind  
I want a big PC computer and printer full of life to dig my fingers in and pull out my brains hidden inside my heart, to throw it doesn’t matter to the wind and bury all the mistakes on the white papers begging on their folded knees to be filled with my stories  

And tickets, tickets to all the places I have never gone and the one I want to go back to that has everything already. It was put together on sight. Who would have guessed. My last words are borrowed, this: If I could put time in a bottle. 
I am listening hopefully.  All aboard. 

– © Connie Williams 2025

(Note: 'gold girl' is intentional. I thought it was a typo, but Connie told me: 'Good girl is trite. Gold girl is new, fresh, original.') 

 
Of course you may use any form you like (or none) for what you share with us here. But this week you might like to try writing it as a flash poem. I think that would actually fit well with our optional subject prompt.

And always, our final suggestion, whether we say so or not, is:
 Have fun!

Next Week: We shall invite you to write poetry or prose which explores (or includes) the following words: delulu, lewk, broligarchy.