This post is provided by Mariner’s wife. All her life she has been a poet extraordinaire. She has the skill to express insight and create association but at the same time her poems dig deep into the reader, leaving some thoughts to conjure.
Many times mariner has encouraged her to publish; she would be successful. She has won a few poetry contests and can dash off another poem in the snap of a finger. One time we were driving down a road when we saw a roadkill raccoon lying by the edge of the road. Within five minutes she had penned a poem asking whether the raccoon deserved a requiem.
The poem below was written after we caught a mouse in the basement that had broken into a bag of sunflower seed. You will enjoy the complexity.
Leavings
I sweep up the leavings of sunflower seeds
left behind by a mouse
whose fate was snapped like its neck
in a trap that I had set.
I am glad that he had the thrill of satiety
when he found the bag of sunflower seeds
He was a millionaire among mice
in that moment of his big find.
I am glad that he did not know
his life would be cut short because of it.
Surely in that last moment there was no time for fear
And that snap too quick for pain.
He had perhaps the best that life can offer
in a little life–the warmth of a basement in winter
an endless pile of food, a quick and merciful death.
Or do I deceive myself?
His was not a little life, no smaller than my own.
Like me, he wanted more than comfort, warmth and food
He sought those things because they brought him more life
And more life was what I deprived him of.
MKM 1-19-19
What a nice poem. Along with Bobbie Burns’ poem about a wee mouse, yours is a worthy mate. I, for one, would like to see more of your poems.
I read To a Mouse–and did not remember the famous lines ‘the best laid plans of mice and men…’ were from that poem. I had to read it side by side with an English translation! Thank you for reminding me of that poem, and for your interest in seeing more of mine. I should use these long winter days to organize my papers!