Thanksgiving Mouse

Happy Poetry Friday! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! This week we are hosted by Ruth HERE. Make sure you stop by and see what poetry goodness she has for us this week. Thank you, Ruth.

I was AWOL from my blog last week preparing for the holiday, but today is Thanksgiving Day and I would like to share a poem about a visitor we had.

THE NIGHT OF THANKSGIVING
(After THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS by Clement C. Moore) 

On the night of Thanksgiving,
all through the house
my family was napping,
but not that gray mouse.

As I cleaned up the kitchen,
stowed the turkey away,
that soft furry creature
stirred up my day.

From out of the mud room,
past kitchen chairs
he dashed to the bathroom—
we cornered him there,

got out a trap,
anxious to get him,
but if I hurt that small mouse
I’d never forget him! 

So in a Tupperware bowl
we trapped the darn thing
and put him outside
for the relief it would bring.

He’s out in the snow,
that little field mouse.
We just couldn’t have him
inside our house. 

©Janice Scully 2021

He was actually tiny and cute and I’m not alone in writing about mice. Here is a well known anthology of poems about mice compiled by Nancy Larrick:

I found this charming poem by A.A. Milne:

MISSING

Has anybody seen my mouse?

I opened his box for just a minute,
Just to make sure he was really in it,
And while I was looking, he jumped outside!
I tried to catch him, I tried, I tried . . . . 
I think he's somewhere about the house.
Has anyone seen my mouse?

Uncle John, have you seen my mouse?

Just a small sort of mouse, a dear little brown one,
He came from the country, he isn't a town one,
So he'll feel all lonely in a London street,
Why, what could he possibly find to eat?

He must be somewhere. I'll ask Aunt Rose:
Have you seen a mouse with a woffelly nose?
Oh, somewhere about--
He's just got out . . . . 

Hasn't anybody seen my mouse?

A.A. Milne

Irene Latham posted several of Valerie Worth’s poems inspired by critters, including this one about mice, (the first two stanzas).

MICE

Mice
Find places
In places,

A dark
Hall behind
The hall,

READ THE REST HERE (AND OTHER POEMS ABOUT CRITTERS BY VALERIE WORTH)

Wishing everyone, and all critters everywhere, the best of the holiday!

Thank you, Ruth, for hosting Poetry Friday.

15 thoughts on “Thanksgiving Mouse”

  1. Your poem about the cute little gray mouse makes me smile. The poem is so sweet. I would be freaking out! LOL. But, I like that you got the little thing outside. Maybe he found a nice haystack or his nest and is now sleeping for the winter. And, I love the A.A. Milne poem. That’s new to me. Thanks!

  2. Loved how you poeticised the moment, Janice. And smiling, because my mum and I used to completely rearrange whole rooms in pursuit of a mouse, when I was a kid. We often laugh about it! I actually thought you were going to end your poem worrying about your poor little mouse, shut out of the house in the cold.😉

  3. Janice, this poem is adorable. 🙂 And yes aren’t mice the cutest things IN BOOKS but not so much in real life?? My mouse story of late is that we had a mouse invasion in a kitchen cabinet. They feasted (and trashed) several things, but mostly honey and molasses… and they yesterday when I was ready to make ginger cookies (eldest son’s favorite), I had no molasses! Quick internet search revealed you can sub brown sugar mixed with a bit of water, so I did that, and they tasted fine, but didn’t have that rich brown color. Thanks a lot, mice! xo

  4. I love ginger cookies, too. Glad you found a work-around, though not quite like molasses. This was the second such visitor in this house and I wonder what will happen next!

  5. I love that you so graciously wrote about your tiny mouse, the house invasion of Thanksgiving! Yes, ‘Mice are nice’ & sad to say they must go, “out in the snow” as your fun poem says. Have a lovely weekend, Janice!

  6. Janice, I love your take on the mouse visit mixed into an old Christmas tale. Thanks for adding other mice poems. We have had several small adventures with pesky mice. One climbed up my mother’s arm while she slept. Can you imagine that?

  7. Janice, your poem leans gently on a familiar refrain to begin, but you add elements of humour and compassion to the mousy mix to give it extra appeal. You also add more mice to the mix with these other poems, and so we have quite a collection of mice (Not quite a plague of mice). My adventures with mice don’t always add so well…

  8. What a fun poem Janice and how caring and generous of you to collect your mouse and place it outside. Thanks for the heads up on “Mice are Nice,” I’ll have to look for it at the library, I love Ed Young’s artwork.

  9. Mice are indeed one of those things you can always find a new way to write about, like the moon and trees and gratitude. Yesterday we found evidence of mice in a place we would not have expected. I’m fine to share…with a few! Thanks for your jolly compassionate poem!

  10. Delightful poem — mice are indeed nice when they’re in somebody else’s house. 🙂 Glad you found a way to dispose of him without harm. We’ve been catching mice in our garage — 4 so far. My SIL has caught 6 in her kitchen. Supposedly this is a year for lots of mice!

  11. Hahahah–love the humor in your poem, Janice. And I fully agree–mice outside are so much cuter than mice inside :>D Have you read Billy Collins’ “The Country”? It has a mouse image that stays with me. Totally different from your poem, but also funny.

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