You Coast the Currents You Can

At the nanometer scales
Of ballooning spider threads,
Air is sticky as honey

And atmosphere’s electric—
None of which young Charles Darwin
Could have known watching spiders

Land by the hundreds on decks
Of the Beagle, sixty miles
Out to sea, so he marveled.

Behavior matches the world
On offer, and the spiders,
And Darwin, and scientists

Who just recently found out
That static electric charge
In the weak vertical field

Earth has at low atmosphere
Is enough to float spiders,
Never mind a need for wind,

All fit their activities
To given parameters
As they experience them,

Sticky air, imperial
Wooden ship with canvas sails,
Algorithmic modeling.