The Meadow Mouse
In a shoe box stuffed in an old nylon stocking Sleeps the baby mouse I found in the meadow, Where he trembled and shook beneath a stick Till I caught him tip by the tail and brought
him in, Cradled in my hand, A little quaker, the whole body of him trembling, His absurd whiskers sticking out like a cartoon- mouse,
His feet like small leaves,
Little lizard-feet, Whitish and spread wide when he tried to struggle away, Wriggling like a miniscule puppy.
Now he's eaten his three kinds of cheese and drunk from his bottle-cap watering-trough- So much he just lies in one corner, His tail curled under him, his belly big As his head; his bat-like ears Twitching, tilting towards the least sound.
Do I imagine he no longer trembles When I come close to him?
He seems no longer to tremble.
II But this morning the shoe-box hOuse on the back porch is empty.
Where has he gone, my meadow-mouse, My'thumb of a child that nuzzled in my palm?— To run under the hawk's wing, Under the eye of the great owl watching from the elm-tree, To live by courtesy of the shrike, the snake, the tom-cat.
I think of the nestling fallen into the deep grass, The turtle gasping in the dusty rubble of the highway,
The paralytic stunned in the tub, and the water rising,—
All things innocent, hapless, forsaken.
THEODORE ROETHKE
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