the flight of the rat

Out of the corner of his eye
The rat sees the piece of Cheddar.
His mouth drips, his tongue drools;
“Dinner”, he thinks;
His eyes light up at the prospect.
He surveys the scene –
All’s quite well,
No one in sight, no one in sound.
He creeps towards his feast,
Cautious, trembling, nervous, anxious.
“When was the last time?” he thinks.
Starving, raving mad with hunger, he cannot remember –
His last meal.
He pauses, starts crying – self-pity.
It occurs in his mind that his last meal
(for it to be called so would be a disgrace to the word)
Was the last devil’s moon,
Several eons past since then –
Time for a rat is quite different.
Snaps back, panics, looks around
Terrified that he might have reminisced his feast away.
“Slow down” he yells at his heart, “it’s okay”
How wrong,
Over the Cheddar, unnoticed, is a dark guillotine –
A hook, a trap, call it what you may.
The rat inches forward, not at the speed of light.
“This is it” the thought flashing through his miserable brain.
Then, he snaps, warning lights flash.
“So close, yet so far…” his miserable brain again.
He turns around and flees, too scared to think of the cheese.
“Something’s wrong, something’s wrong…”
Under cover, at last, he looks back;
What was it that scared him away?
He surveys the scene – all’s quite well -
No one in sight, no one in sound.
So begins his next mission to annex the feast.
“History repeats itself…” he thinks
After performing an encore.
“Damn my damn mind” – after another
And the show will go on...

satyajit venkatraman
September 3, 1998