Let’s keep the light we’re given
When our store of words is fled
Empty as a music box
Or a box to house the dead;

When the bridge between living and dying
Has crumpled into the dust 
Of a Wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie*
Then all of our days are cussed.

We dream in tints, and think in shades,
When the gates of the new Jerusalem 
Appear then quickly fade
On the brink of the living-grave.

Follow your heart through lingering death,
With colours and music and words bereft.
Will the feel of the will-o’-the-wisp on your skin
Cause a blackout in art, atonal tears, or a djinn?

Help me to know in the glimmering-light
How feeling illuminates a wisp of foresight.

• - To a Mouse by Robbie Burns