The Fourth Blind Mouse

Poetry Homework to write a poem inspired by Kay Ryan’s “The Fourth Wise Man”

The fourth mouse
didn’t run.  He
didn’t mind that he
was blind.  He
preferred to hide
between the walls
and listen;
so he heard his
running brothers’ tails
wacked
wacked
wacked
with the carving knife!
Not one of his kin
lost his life, but
he had to call them
all Bob.  That
Farmer’s Wife
ain’t no joke.


Patricia Prewitt
April 7, 2009



The fourth wise man
disliked travel.  If
you walk, there’s the
gravel.  If you ride,
there’s the camel’s attitude.
He far preferred
to be inside in solitude
to contemplate the star
that had been getting
so much larger
and more prolate lately - -
stretching vertically
(like the souls of martyrs)
toward the poles
(or like the yawns of babies).