Lifebuoy

I used to do this as a child, make paper boats and send them into big muddy rain water puddles and push them with a stick close to drowning beetles, who'd crawl into them immediately. The beetle-ship would then be slowly pushed ashore before it disintegrated in the water.  I would wait until all the beetles crawled out and made their way to higher grounds. I guess my life hasn't entirely been in vain, though it seems that way most of the time.

Tarantulas on the Lifebuoy
Thomas Lux

For some semitropical reason  
when the rains fall  
relentlessly they fall

into swimming pools, these otherwise  
bright and scary
arachnids. They can swim
a little, but not for long

and they can’t climb the ladder out.
They usually drown—but  
if you want their favor,
if you believe there is justice,  
a reward for not loving

the death of ugly
and even dangerous (the eel, hog snake,  
rats) creatures, if

you believe these things, then  
you would leave a lifebuoy
or two in your swimming pool at night.

And in the morning  
you would haul ashore
the huddled, hairy survivors

and escort them
back to the bush, and know,
be assured that at least these saved,  
as individuals, would not turn up

again someday
in your hat, drawer,
or the tangled underworld

of your socks, and that even—
when your belief in justice
merges with your belief in dreams—
they may tell the others

in a sign language  
four times as subtle
and complicated as man’s

that you are good,  
that you love them,
that you would save them again.