Eye-to-Eye - Oct 17 2025

 

Eye-to-Eye

Oct 17 2025



Eye-to-eye with a mouse

on the pantry's upper shelf

as I entered and turned on the light.

I whiplashed back, it froze

before darting off in a blur of grey

and a scuttle of tiny feet,

a small timid creature

more shocked than me.

Heavy rain

and mice, flooded out, have materialized

in this this dark dry refuge,

this emporium 

of unexpected abundance.

Have put a lie to the conceit

that home is a safe redoubt,

these walls

a bulwark against the world.

I shudder, picturing Malthus’ dire prophecy;

exponential mice

scurrying about

as if they owned the place,

until my home becomes unliveable

and has to be condemned.

But still, I feel terribly ambivalent

seeing the dead mouse

head crushed 

dangling from the trap,

fresh blood down its neck

the same bright red as mine.

I hold it out at arms’ length

and carry it to the trash;

an ignominious burial,

out-of-mind and out-of-sight.

A warm-blooded mammal

too much like me.

A small defenceless animal

out to make a living

unheard and unseen.

And a member of a family

who will be missed. 

Perhaps a mother

with hairless pups

huddled in their hidden lair,

emitting high-pitched squeaks

of unrequited hunger.

I begin to understand the Buddhist monk

who wouldn't harm a fly,

the monastery

where rats run free.

The soft underbelly

of human empathy,

the fatal flaw

of compassion.

Build a better mousetrap, and they will come.

Or hope

for no more heavy rains

torrential downpours.

For no more Biblical floods

that carry all of us away;

both mice and men,

hungry and fed,

sinner and saint.