The Easter Rat

By Jane Hyphen

Mon, 05 Apr 2021
  • 599 reads
2 comments
 

 

He’s got a rat, Mango’s caught a rat!

Mango can’t catch anything..

He was once hit by the Amazon van,

It broke his pelvis, his back, his tail.

Let it go Mango, hold back the dogs!

The dogs dozed on, curled up like snails

I’ve got Mango but where’s the rat?

It’s in that corner in the shoes

It’s not it’s gone, it’s disappeared

The rat was indeed removed….vanished

 

Hours passed, a lazy, quiet Easter day

Yet one of the dogs, the sensitive one

Strangely on edge, resisted all sleep

Mango’s sister, Melon returned

And suddenly switched on

Her every prowling, feline technique

Air sniffing, eyes flashing, claws digging

She slipped and stealthed her way

Into the lounge to the mystic rodent

Who was meditating beneath a bookcase

 

Get Melon out, take her away!

Bring the snack jar in her place

We flushed the rat but he was fast

Like a tiny greyhound on a track

He was a handsome little guy

And very clever too, indeed a triumph

Of the natural world, he would survive

This trial and many others too

The snack jar, he was trapped inside

Tiny pink hands against the glass

We held him up, like a trophy

 

With all semi-domesticated creatures

Safely locked away, we took our rat 

Dropped him over the fence

Upon a trampoline of cut grass

He bounced once and ran away

The Easter rat returned safely

To something resembling the wild

All evening Mango intermittently cried 

For what he found and lost, his prize

We stroked his mangled back and ego

The Easter rat - a message of survival and tolerance

 

 

 

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Comments

Submitted by Di_Hard on

Oh! I am glad he is better, remember you writing about him ages ago, having to stay in a cage till his bones healed. And then a rat!!! That is a proud and stubborn spirit he must have.

I like very much how you describe the atmosphere in the house when the other animals realise, and also the excitement of the chase. Well done catching it :0)

We have a rat problem, my son's beautiful cat passed away last year and even though he had been so ill they kept away till a few weeks later. Tina does try, but I think she is too highly strung so is more into moths.

ps she has repeatedly sat on the keyboard so I couldn't post this, so there may be another reason which I am too stupid to understand, such as rats are big ans scary and bite and I am an intelligent sensitive feline. hm she is not sitting on the keyboard now...

 

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Hi Di_Hard. Sorry to hear about your son's cat. I still miss my little Sylva and it's been four years and now we have two cats which must be hybridised with monkeys since they are more trouble than any dog, cat or child I have ever lived with!

That little rat was really quite charming in a sense and the way one of my whippets was acting so out of sorts while it hid in the lounge was really interesting and funny. There were no injuries on it and it appeared in rude health. Luckily it didn't bit any of us.

Thanks for your comment x