A Yankee Mouse.

Copies of this are the comments I left on FA and DA, but some people here don't visit those sites for various reasons. So here is the slightly altered version of the original I wrote in 2000. It's sort of long, and sort of cheesy, and doesn't rhyme, but whatever. I like it.

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A Yankee Mouse

By Elizabeth Brisby

Once I dreamed of being queen
Of flowing tresses and pearls abound
My life would be filled with fancy days
And the pain of life would never sound
But I am a Yankee mouse, I fear
Doomed to spend eternity here
I speak these words with a touch of mirth
Because I love to hear others question me
About my life and sudden rebirth
I have told it to others, and now to you I tell
My story

Raised in fields by parents long gone
I spent lonely nights wandering around
Collecting the fruits fallen to earth
To feed myself and casual passers by
For even then I could not resist a tender smile
Which often led to nights under bowing birches
With my new found friends on the hard, cold ground
But what a surprise was to hit me next
Sad now to remember with a sigh my love
Who came upon me one day with eyes bright
My turtledove
And I, dumb to this day to remember why
Gave him a drink, for he looked pale and dry
Grateful, we took to each other like cows to hay
And spent the turn of leaves in the many colored field
Blue for the nighttime, red and yellow for the day
The farmer who tilled our home never knew the miracle
Growing deep within the earth below
Where he and I had made our home
From a block of stone and a rusted pan
My womb grew large as the days grew short
And spring did come, so did I match
Nature’s blooming bounty with my generous yield
Four darling children and my tender man

Moving day, and we did run
Far away to higher ground
To overlook the season’s plow
Tearing asunder where I had laid
Not hours before, under the rising sun
My man looked at me with a knowing gaze
And told me to remember that Man, though cruel
Knows not what he does to the land of old where we had raised
Our precious charge and memories made
Then I knew not to fear the plow or Man
But only to expect change, when it is due
To this day do I fondly remember him
Teaching our children to laugh and sing
And to read, a wondrous thing
That even I had learned, though not as well
Children are quickest to learn to sing
I learned of the changing seasons, what they were called
He taught me about time and how to tell
When the plow would come the next spring
I thought that night about what he had said
My life had changed, I said to the candle’s light
‘Ere I blew it out, and laid down to bed
With my man one last time, for upon the night’s starry dome
Was written the fate I could not change
For on the next day, he would not come home

I must write now with a heavy heart
My man is gone, and the field is once again cold
Without his warmth, how can I go on?
Never except by joking whim
Did we ever expect to be apart
Even for a day or two, but now we are forever more
Yet I go on, because the kids are old
And ply me with echoed questions that I had asked
While laying with him under the golden dawn
Not quite a year ago, remembered I
Now I am expected of to answer life’s queries
I must admit, they do make me weary
But on I go, down a road with no end
To face life’s challenges without a tear
I am a mother, and must face my fear
My son was ill, and a fever broke quite strong
Upon his head, yet I knew all along
That he would make it through
The sickness that the dew can bring
It tired me to face each day
Trying to stop the plow some way
For he could not be moved, it was yet too early
The chill air would be fatal; it sings death’s song
So braving the open wilds I wandered far
Owls, crows, and rats did I meet in travel
Move your house, they said, and so it went
But after a time did the plan unravel
My dear home sunk, my children with it
And desperate, I used a power
Given to me by high above, some angelic thing
I won’t admit that I did it on my own
But so the block went, to the lee of the stone

After a time did it finally come to pass
That I collected my thoughts and wrote this poem
About my life so far, and man so dear
A thousand lifetimes have I lived, so close to home
I only wish that I could have been with him
On his fateful escape from NIMH
But now I know why I am here
I must be the light for our four little ones
I listen at night for his call out there
Alone at once, and at once all as one
The stars so bright, the moon so near
I know soon on flying dreams my heart will soar
When time itself decides to take me
And this simple Yankee mouse will see
Us reunited as Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Brisby.

~Liz

Interesting. I haven't seen it before, but is it a song or a poem?

It's beautiful just the way it is.

Peace :D
NIMHmaniac