At first the damp leaves

rustled with the thought

of unharvested sheaves

and undergrads untaught,

the myrtle greens, the browns

of soggy paper bags

or satin May Ball gowns

lacking designer tags.

Startled like a fear,

the stubby, red-haired mouse

showed its tufted rear

above a weed-choked house,

taking a nervous pause

beneath the shadowy leaf,

unworried by the cause

of rage, despair, or grief,

or sins that separate

man from a mouse so wary,

our rough but certain fate

in Eden’s bestiary.

Through the star-crossed town

each boy with pink champagne

escorted a brilliant gown

down a college lane.

Love places us in a line

stretching back to the fish

that left the womb’s warm brine

for the land’s gibberish,

but no man comprehends

the reason of his birth,

or that he’ll lie in the end

beneath the weedy earth,

where the common vole,

a sacrificial pawn,

intends to be small but whole

some generations on.