Pat Riviere-Seel: "Prayer for a Field Mouse"

Bless the gray mouse

that found her way
into the recycle bin.
Bless her tiny body,
no bigger than my thumb,
huddled and numb
against the hard side.
Bless her bright eye,
a frightened gleaming
that opened to me
and the nest she made
from shredded paper,
all I could offer.
Bless her last hours
alone under the lamp
with food and water near.
Bless this brief life
I might have ended
had she stayed hidden
inside the insulation.
Bless her body returned
to earth, no more
or less than any creature.

"Prayer for a Field Mouse" by Pat Riviere-Seel. Text as published in Nothing Below but Air: Poems (Main Street Rag Publishing, 2014). Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Art credit: "Wood Mouse [Field Mouse] in the Netherlands," photograph by Rasbak.