Ioanna Warwick

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Edelweiss
---Blueridge Mountains, the Adirondacks

It was not Mus domesticus
but a field mouse that appeared
as if on cue as I described
an edelweiss, stem, leaf and petal

covered with dense plush.
When she saw me, the mouse
lifted her face and for a hushed
minute we stared--

I must have seemed a raptor--
an owl-like mask
with frontal predator's eyes--
Yet my nickname used to be "Mouse."

I overheard a man once:
"Look how she walks--not across
the yard, but next to the wall.
That is what mice do."

Don't you see
the courage of the mouse?
Its wisdom in keeping close
to the shadowing wall?

Not with doves and roses
the mouse and I claim our survival,
but with a starlike
flower tucked into rock.

I saw my mouse a few more times.
I wished the animal were tame,
and would run up and down my arm
with her pale feet and shoelace tail.

Little mouse, little mouse,
I know you no longer exist--
except in these half-moon
words about a moment of grace.

And I feel as though I have lived
several lifetimes by now,
here in this life,
without needing to die.

Or rather, I have died,
meaning changed.

Mouse, in memory
of both of us,
I name you Edelweiss.

Copyright (C) Ioanna Warwick, 2006. All rights reserved.

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