All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.  

Trees Growing within the Foundation of a House

THE GLITTERING WEB

Words and Music by Jim Robbins

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When I was young, I nearly stepped
into a glittering web large enough
to capture me. I stared, transfixed,
until I glimpsed a jewel with many legs
in the corner of the web. I galloped away
as though I'd witnessed the terrible weaver
of our fate. Soon I found oak trees growing
within the foundation of a house next
to the river. Alone, I inched along
the top of the foundation wall until
a disembodied voice stated, "You will
be back in thirty-five years." I dashed
in terror along the path until I found
the web torn apart, fluttering in the breeze,
the spider gone. I returned unexpectedly
thirty-five years later.
I did not attempt to grasp the water
as I pondered the river. I did not mourn
all the torn webs. I sat quietly, waiting
to hear the voice again,
but all I heard were warblers,
my soul drenched with peace.

Pestles in a Pounding Stone

THE GLITTERING WEB

   I’ve had a number of experiences that suggest that we each have a destiny. When I was eleven, on several occasions I heard voices that predicted the future. One day, for instance, as the rest of my family was fishing, I discovered the foundation of a house in the floodplain of the Kings River. Tall oak trees were growing inside the foundation where, long ago, a house used to stand. As I was playing on the foundation wall, a disembodied voice predicted that I would be back in thirty-five years. I was the only one there.
   Thirty-five years later I returned unexpectedly to the foundation. As I was growing up, I had no idea where we were most of the time when my family went fishing, so I did not know where the foundation was located. The day that I discovered it again, I was simply driving down the one-lane road next to the river and happened to look down at the floodplain at just the right moment. If I had looked down a second later, I would not have been able to see the foundation.
   Other predictions and powerful intuitions about the future have also come true, usually many years later, one notable prediction being about how I would search for the remnants of Native American cultures. Perhaps every moment in one’s life is predetermined, or perhaps all of time exists at once but we can only experience a thread of time. If that is the case, then the recent upheaval in my life was always part of my fate. My wife was destined to leave me after thirty years of marriage.
   If I feel sorrow for all the torn webs, perhaps I simply need to learn to let go. Perhaps I just need to appreciate them for what they were. My fate is to find the village sites of a people who had lived in the region for thousands of years, not to find the people themselves—they are long gone from those places. My fate is to find the foundation of a house in the floodplain of a river with trees growing inside of it, not to find a family in a mansion by the river. My fate is to find peace even while finding myself with the remains of what has been lost.