Spinning Pins

The weaver sits cross-legged in bed, tracking the in-and-out phasing of crickets along the fabric of the dark. There may be a warp and weft to the lines they make: one is nearly continuous like a creek, another sings steadily but with slow openings and closings inside the sound, another punctuates the song, like a clock’s second hand, with a raspy double note. All these are perpendicular to each other; what they weave comes in the window as a sheet.

She is not thinking of it now, but the painter will not be able to paint this sheet into his mural. Today he was beginning to sketch outbuildings lightly onto the wall. A small barn they both know well, opening out on the downslope side, with some vehicle lurking in its dust and half-dark.

What she is thinking is, what season will it be in the mural?