Fires and Mice

A confluence of events over the past several days "sparked" my interest in the following poem: A friend and I were having a conversation about Billy Collins; the waitress at dinner casually mentioned that her husband almost burned down their house; and even though it's late April, our wood-burning furnace is still being put to good use, despite not having much more quality wood to fuel it.  Oh, and the fact that we do share our 200-year old home with plenty of mice.

The Country

Billy Collins

I wondered about you

when you told me never to leave

a box of wooden, strike-anywhere matches

lying around the house because the mice

might get into them and start a fire.

But your face was absolutely straight

when you twisted the lid down on the round tin

where the matches, you said, are always stowed. 

Who could sleep that night?

Who could whisk away the thought

of the one unlikely mouse

padding along a cold water pipe

behind the floral wallpaper

gripping a single wooden match

between the needles of his teeth?

Who could not see him rounding a corner, 

the blue tip scratching against a rough-hewn beam, 

the sudden flare, and the creature

for one bright, shining moment

suddenly thrust ahead of his time--

now a fire-starter, now a torchbearer

in a forgotten ritual, little brown druid

illuminating some ancient night.  

Who could fail to notice, 

lit up in the blazing insulation, 

the tiny looks of wonderment on the faces

of his fellow mice, onetime inhabitants 

of what once was your house in the country?