Not long after I started my round as an Ocado delivery driver this morning, this happened. It made me sad. I had to write about it.
Driving my van at half past six
between Grateley and Cholderton
on my way to drop two,
only sixteen more to do.
A mouse scuttles, swiftly, across my way.
I slow. He survives to get to the other side.
He jumps onto the grassy bank.
He survives. Alive! Phew!
Swoop! Flash! Kestrel.
Death. Dead mouse. Bird food.
I am sad. I almost cry.
One thrives as another dies.
Run. Jump. Heart thumps.
Living. Ecstatic. Happy.
Dive. Grab. Talons.
Death. Life. Sadness.
This is a brilliant poem, Lance. So spare in use of language, but so sharply observed, and very moving. It’s like a metaphor for life (in some cases. Hopefully not ours!). I once wrote a poem “to a Dead Mouse” in my early teens. And that was just because I saw it lying there in the garden, not because I had witnessed a drama like you have.
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