Helping Or Not (Poetry)

I saved a life today
or imagined that I did —
a small insect of the aphid kind
found struggling in the dust
on our bathroom window ledge

A feeble-looking thing —
all spindle-legged and folded wing
he seemed to semaphore distress

Soft-hearted I encouraged him
onto a bug-size life raft’s paper square —
a torn-off scrap of tissue

Then set him free upon the air
and he was whirled away
into the bright and breezy yawn
of a May morning ...

Did I do right, I wonder
to send him out unknowing
on a flight beyond
his instinct’s comprehension?

I’ll never know his fate
and he could never understand
or guess my good intention

Each of us fragile in our way
and lacking any means
of the most basic communication