Current mood:

cynical

Mouse the Warrior
I am mouse the warrior

It is now I am vast

Once
I was small
and spent my day unseen
finding seed in the grass
so easily in green sweet summer

But Cat, sharp
of eye and fang,
found me, gripped
me with her claw in
my thin fur

Like her kitten, I rode
her mouth, stunned painless,
as She took me to a strange, hard place
of corners and flatness
and no place to hide

There
She released me
to do with me that Evil
Cats find Good

I ran
but everywhere
was Cat
waiting
batting me
with clawless paw

The Master of Cat
loomed up behind her
making these sounds of soft anger
"Nesbit! kill the mouse now!
Stop tormenting it!
Stop it!"

Cat got me in a corner--
no way behind me,
no way past Cat . . .

My Death I could smell . . .
yet I might live
I arose
I, mouse
I raised myself up
and bristled my fur
I bared my teeth, small, sharp,
and challenged the Cat

Cat's pink Master changed
"Ah . . . warrior mouse!
Hold it, Nesbit!"
and He lunged for his Cat

Cat obeyed his first command

Quicker than rain,
quicker than Hawk,
quicker than snow on the wind,
and quicker than her large,
slow Master,
She swept me out of my imposture
and pierced and broke me

Into the lack of blackness
lost even the heart of mouse
not I traveled there


* * *

At length came a Shadow
which once I had feared--
Great Owl
at my indifferent side

"I am come to take you"

"Has then Cat left
something to feed you?"

"Brother"
said Owl
"You mistake the meaning of things--
Come, warrior past harm"

Talons took me into Light,
the colors of the world I knew
yet never saw together
We flew!

Owl put me in the grass
and settled in a tree
while I turned to see

Fox sitting in the East
Snake coiled up in the South
Coyote in the West
and Cat reclined to the North

Many days we talked
eating seed and drinking dew

"Brother Mouse
what will you choose?
You, who have all
the paths of the world"

Many days more I thought--

How grand to be Coyote
and travel far and sniff the land

How sweet the life of Fox
in love with summer's ease

How wise the secret path of Snake
who swims in grass and earth

How great the grace of Cat
whose veiled heart is terrible and pure

How soft the wings of Owl
to walk night wind in silence

"I will be mouse,
it is enough"

Coyote took the Drum . . .
The Terrible Powers sang

I am still mouse
but am now vast

Cat comes upon me in the grass
but I need not show my teeth

My kin fear me as they do Owl
but I sing for them--
I sing of Cat and the terrible heart
and the path to the wise

I sing--
I am mouse the warrior
I am here