The Language of Small Things

I once saw a frog caught in a spider web.

It was a tree frog, the size of a quarter, and his captor was one of those hairy wolf spiders that can grow as large as a hand. The web stretched tight between two large maples, and the more the little frog struggled, the more tangled he became. The spider crept steadily toward him. I didn't stay to see the end.

Sometimes it's the small things that matter most, for in them, we see a world turned completely on end. In writing, I like to zoom in close and linger on the small things--the twitching eye, the woodpecker holes in the bark of the tree, the sweat stain on the t-shirt. I like to write the stories the small things tell and listen to the voices that speak around them, even if the sound they make is as tiny as a tree frog.
 

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