We called their shells tatonies but they were plant arachnids.

Seedy ganglia with spidery legs.

You could find them under cottonwood trees after spring catkins.

A suspended crypto-web in the shady bosque floor near the river.

Between tatonies were intercalated aeolian,

ethereal, ephemeral cotton domains.

The lowest two inches of the bosque

would poof into blue-green flame in a thrilling second.

We dropped or shot a lighted match

from a cleverly rearranged clothes-pin spinneret.

The cottontails were terrified of this.

Along the Rio Grande there is a forest of Cottonwoods within the floodplain, It floods nearly every year, so people are smart enough not to build a house there.  It is inhabited by animals and evolves into an unplanned and mostly ignored area, except for young boys and a few other stalwarts.The core of engineers put up difficult fences to keep people from wandering into these beautifal spots. They didn’t keep young boys out. I have great memories for walks there, swimming in the river and looking for animals, birds (BB gun!) and miscellaneous spontaniety. Cotton fell from the cottonwoods and built up on the forest floor, sticking together in a transparent mat. Firey explosion of the cotton was something irrisistable to young boys, and we tried to go there when the cotton was high.