Mice Poem by robert dickerson

I have seen them and heard them
Creeping, scurrying across the floors
And in the corners
By night-the lonely foraging they do:
Frightening to a poor
Solitary sleeper and dream reaper.
But they must eat, too.

So long as they be mice
And not their heftier kin
Who rarely, I'm told, ascend such heights
I can abide them, then
And with them share my larder and my floor:
All of us are poor
And these can make their feast upon my crumb.

I could get a Burma cat-
Good mousers, all know that,
Or a hydrocolator;
I could set a trap, ah so-
But why do that?
To hear the snap before the squeal of woe
Would perturb ate my dreams-oh, no.

No way! A trap's too easy.
Could not a trap be set for me?
Neatly baited, for who's'ever's sake
When all they wanted was my extra flake?
Just let them be,
Them in Nature, doing Nature's work,
And in the morning conscience-free, awake.