@BlackPoppet, I'm so sorry. You gave them a wonderful life.
A few months ago I tried to find a half-remembered poem on line, but I couldn't find it in English - just Russian and Spanish. I used my rusty Russian, antique Spanish and faint recollection of the original to resuscitate it. I hope it speaks to you and your companions.
Tarantula
Reed Whittemore (1959)
Everyone thinks I'm venomous. I'm not.
Look up and read the authorities, especially
One Alexander Petrunkevitch, of Yale, now retired,
Who said of me (and I quote): my "bite is dangerous
Only
To insects and small mammals such as mice."
I trust you notice that "only"; it's important,
As you who are neither insects nor mice can appreciate.
I have to live, the same as you,
and how would you like it if your nature were judged
on the basis of your relationship with, say, the chicken?
Moreover,
Petrunkevitch has observed − and I can vouch for his veracity −
That I am myopic, lonely and withdrawn. At birth
I dig a burrow for myself, just for me,
And I live in it all my life except when I go out
In search of food or love (in my case the latter
Is not very satisfying: I "wander around after dark in search of females",
And sometimes I get lost and wander into someone's house and die.
How does that sound?)
Moreover,
I have to cope with the hunter wasp of the genus Pepsis,
and despite my unfounded reputation as a murderer,
I can't. Petrunkevitch says so.
Read him. He knows his subject. He's helped me.
Which brings me to my thesis here. You have
This image of me that is at once slanderous
And discouraging, and all because you, who should know better,
find me ugly. All right, I'm ugly. But does that mean
You have to persecute me the way you do?
Read William Blake.
Read William Wordsworth.
Read Williams in general, I'd say.
Once there was a book by William Tarántula,
A work of some importance in my world on the subject of beauty −
Beauty which is only superficial, beauty that a bit of
Charles (note the "Charles") of the Ritz can apply or remove
At will, beauty that − but I digress.
What I'm getting at is this:
You who (I have read) are endowed with great intellect
Should try to understand me, little me.
My name is William
Too.
