the acorn mouse

a bedtime story about a mouse.

Underneath the second porch step 

Of a house in a town that you’ll soon forget

Lived an angry old mouse who squeaked not a sound

Only chewed on his tongue and stared down at the ground.

The birds and the spiders and the beetles and frogs

Tried to open him up like a clock with stuck cogs,

But the mouse pushed them off and scoffed at their care--

He wanted to be found but he didn't know where.

His tongue grew dry and bitter as it drank up his resentment,

So he tricked himself into a numb state of contentment.

The mouse said to himself, “I am such a good listener!”

But in truth the small rodent felt more like a prisoner.

He thought that his silence was selfless and stoic

But it made his friends miserable, though he didn’t know it.

So he built his own friend, a little mouse made of sticks

With an acorn head and whiskers of old candle wicks.

He was dressing up the mouse in bright autumn leaves

When suddenly into his head popped a scheme:

“I’ll send this mouse out to be me instead--

For who could love me, such a drag, such a dread?”

And his plan seemed to work on the bird and the spider

Even the beetle and frog were fond of this outsider.

Each day the acorn mouse grew louder and bolder

Each day to his friends he got warmer, not colder.

He told jokes and spun stories until he was breathless

And it was then that the old mouse knew he was jealous.

“Why isn’t that me?” the tired mouse cried,

“Why am I always left out and never inside?”

One day something came over him, just what he couldn’t say,

And he did something that on him would always weigh.

He found him by the stream, his tailor-made twin,

And crying salty tears, pushed his one friend right in.

The acorn mouse floundered and shouted “Please help!”

“I am going to drown!” he squeaked out with a yelp.

But old mouse stood frozen, his head full of the things

That he’d stored up for years in a tangle of strings.

“How brave,” he realized, “this acorn mouse is,

To need and to want and to ask and to live.”

And the old mouse found that his tongue was not so heavy

He shouted, “Hold on! I’ve got you, get ready!”

And with a great tug the two mice fell in together,

For the old mouse was weak, as worn out as old leather.

But as they splashed in the water they both said at once,

“This stream’s shallow and warm--aren’t I a dunce!”

They laughed hard together and on the grass they spread

And the acorn mouse took off his acorn cap and said:

“You’ll always be my friend, so wear this every day

And know that it counts, every word that you say.”

The old mouse knew then that the fault was his own

As long as he was honest, he wouldn’t be alone.