In the night we snuck out
with two pairs of garden shears
finely honed
and cut into the neighbor's
perfectly angled boxwood hedge
a topiary of couples
in the most inventive sexual positions
such as we remembered
from pornographic magazines
and the facades of Indian temples
lost deep in tropical forests
our work done
we ran back home
I put my nightshirt on
and he his pajama pants
and we slept the sleep
of the righteous
The next morning
the neighbor's angry shouts
woke us from our unmarried
but nevertheless chaste bed
In the night we snuck out
with spray cans in blue and red
and graffitied the spotless
white walls of the neighbor's house
with the words
FUCK YOU
in the most intricate and artistic design
making sure that the words
FUCK and YOU intertwined
in every imaginable way
our work accomplished
we ran back home
and I in my white nightshirt
and he in his blue pajama pants
slept in each other's arms the sleep
of the righteous
The next morning
police cars and a great congregation
of excitedly chattering sightseers
woke us from our unmarried
but nevertheless still chaste bed
we looked at each other
and decided that
the greatest mischief
would be to make
love
now
I was told a story that had made the news,
of a man who found a mouse in his house.
He caught the mouse, and because he had a little bonfire going in his yard
he threw the living mouse into the fire.
The terrified creature managed to get out of the flames,
itself now burning, a living torch,
and ran blindly back into the house,
where it apparently let the furniture partake of its fire.
The house burned down to the ground
with the proud homeowner weeping over smoldering ashes,
the butt of divine justice.
Serves him right.
The mouse, sadly to say,
died in that fire too.
There are almost too many morals in this story.
As for example: be kind to small critters
lest they'll burn your house down.
Or: how small things can have big consequences.
It is also the story of most wars
as wars usually come home to the one who started it,
in one way or another, sooner or later,
destroying him along with his enemy.
~
A second story declares itself the mirror image of the first,this one an exercise in animal to animal behavior.
It concerns a woman whose daughter told her
that there was a mouse in the house,
and the mouse was eating the cat food.
The woman didn't quite believe her
– children tell such tiny tales –
until she came home one day and saw the mouse.
It was sitting in the cat dish, nibbling the cat food.
The two cats, Siamese at that,
were sitting earnestly in front of the dish,
watching the mouse eat.
And, according to the daughter's evidence,
now admitted as such,
this had been going on for some time.
Watching the mouse eat.
Not eating the mouse.
Not throwing it into a (metaphorical) fire.
What are we to make of that?
Do I hear some comment about the degeneration of
domesticated animals who've lost their hunting instinct?
Then amongst us humans must be living certain creatures of the wild
who will always hunt.
Not to feed, not to have enough,
but to have more,
to hoard the overflow against a future time
when they can sell it dearly,
or invest their kibbles in the stock market,
and use their more for the open or secret wielding of power.
Certainly not share anything with the proverbial mouse,
not even a little space behind the walls.
Throw the vermin into the fire!
While cats with their reputation as cruel predators
seem able to get over instinct and age old racial differences
once their bellies are full and they've had time
to contemplate the goodness of life
that serves them a full bowl every day.
~
Yet mice can be very dangerous to people.They carry the Hanta virus, causing an infection
from which not everybody will recover.
American Natives knew this and dealt with any mouse sightings
in the following manner:
everything a mouse had touched was burned,
including the house if that's where the animal was seen.
They would not burn the mouse, of course,
for one thing because they would never ever touch it.
The mouse had plenty of time to get away
before the fire started.
~
Did the mouse who burned down that man's housedo him an unwitting favor?
And should the woman with the mouse in her house
also burn her house down?
Everything leads to more questions.
There is so much to think about.
that I am so afraid
we will stop breathing
any moment now and then
we will have been
if we are nothingness
before and after
and in between are nothingness
looking at itself
what are we
and why
all the fuss?
the truth is
my heartbeat and my singing nerves
echoes in the multitudinous void
and yet whose voice
was calling?
I think it was you
one nothingness
incants the other
to set up a vibration
love me for no other reason
than my charming whisper
which tells you that I am
where only
a moment ago
nothing was and is
already passing
and death will be a nothingness
no different
than we are
Violetta says, "I was brought up by my atheist father to believe in original thought, and by my adventurous mother to believe in the romance of life. I moved to Eugene, Oregon with my musician husband and became the secretary-treasurer of the Local 689 of the American Federation of Musicians. My husband and I separated recently. I play renaissance and baroque music on recorders. I write stories, novels, and poetry. I have two finished poetry collections, Neverdays and Out of my Window and I'm working on a third called Story Book - Of random things that don't fit."