{"id":2859,"date":"2013-01-30T14:13:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-30T14:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=2859"},"modified":"2026-01-15T17:33:04","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T17:33:04","slug":"three-blind-mice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=2859","title":{"rendered":"Three Blind Mice…"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span>I was “doing” some poetry the other day. Obviously, I have let “the verse side” down because I came across a poem by a poet I hadn’t heard of (of which I hadn’t heard) – Billy Collins who was Poet Laureate of the US from 2001 to 2003. I really must “do” poetry more often.  Anyway here is the poem I saw when I “clicked” on his name.<\/p>\n

\nI Chop Some Parsley While Listening To Art Blakey’s Version Of “Three Blind Mice”<\/h2>\n
\n
\n
\nAnd I start wondering how they came to be blind.
\nIf it was congenital, they could be brothers and sister,
\nand I think of the poor mother
\nbrooding over her sightless young triplets.<\/p>\n

Or was it a common accident, all three caught
\nin a searing explosion, a firework perhaps?
\nIf not,
\nif each came to his or her blindness separately,<\/p>\n

how did they ever manage to find one another?
\nWould it not be difficult for a blind mouse
\nto locate even one fellow mouse with vision
\nlet alone two other blind ones?<\/p>\n

And how, in their tiny darkness,
\ncould they possibly have run after a farmer’s wife
\nor anyone else’s wife for that matter?
\nNot to mention why.<\/p>\n

Just so she could cut off their tails
\nwith a carving knife, is the cynic’s answer,
\nbut the thought of them without eyes
\nand now without tails to trail through the moist grass<\/p>\n

or slip around the corner of a baseboard
\nhas the cynic who always lounges within me
\nup off his couch and at the window
\ntrying to hide the rising softness that he feels.<\/p>\n

By now I am on to dicing an onion
\nwhich might account for the wet stinging
\nin my own eyes, though Freddie Hubbard’s
\nmournful trumpet on “Blue Moon,”<\/p>\n

which happens to be the next cut,
\ncannot be said to be making matters any better. <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\nBilly Collins<\/div>\n
\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Two blind mice<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

I love this poem!! To be able to take a children’s rhyme and to squeeze so much meaning out of it, while doing the simplest of everyday tasks – chopping parsley, listening to music – takes a genius. Or maybe it just takes time and thought and looking into common everyday “things” to find a meaning, an emotion there, that others have missed because they are always looking for something more important.<\/p>\n

But what if there really isn’t anything more important and we find in the end that we have missed doing all these “things” because we thought that they were insignificant, daily chores, not worth celebrating!!<\/p>\n

I am wondering now, as I write, what could be said about the rhyme “Three Little Kittens,” while knitting mittens and listening to an old folk song about a spinning wheel.<\/p>\n

Have a thoughtful day.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was “doing” some poetry the other day. Obviously, I have let “the verse side” down because I came across a poem by a poet I hadn’t heard of (of which I hadn’t heard) – Billy Collins who was Poet Laureate of the US from 2001 to 2003. I really must “do” poetry more often. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2860,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2859"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2861,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859\/revisions\/2861"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}