Which is no great thing,
coming in from the frost-bitten fields,
meeting its mousey maker,
eternity’s go-between the simple housecat,
a fat and playful agent of death.
The late mouse, its life poured out
on a mat by a door,
the watch of its heart stopped,
the wheel in its head no longer turning.
As must we all lie down,
a little dirt-nap for the fallen just,
an old wind aching in the yellowing glade,
fields of gold calling us home,
the grains of harvest piled high.
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Death of a Mouse
by Bruce McRae
Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with poems published in hundreds of magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. The winner of the 2020 Libretto prize and author of four poetry collections and seven chapbooks, his poems have been performed and
broadcast globally.
