Darling Rattie...

Despite the general public's, not to mention the scientific community's, admiration of its amazing maze-solving aptitude, the rat has gotten a bum rap. Sure, the black rat (Rattus rattus), aka the ship rat or roof rat, can be a furry incubator for the bubonic plague, and admittedly the larger, more ferocious Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus) -- and no offense here to Minneapolitans of the Norwegian persuasion -- aka the brown rat, regularly raids corn cribs and chicken houses (sucking on eggs and killing chickens) and oftentimes engages in similar good-for-nothing behavior. However, these sociable creatures can learn tricks, look cute in tiny little outfits, and inspire poetry. As my friend K. Alma notes, Brenda Hillman has a wonderful rat poem, "The Rat," (in Bright Existence. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1993) in which she calls her pet rat "darling."

So let's think lovingly about rats. Does humidity cause their whiskers to curl? I'd like to think so.

Does today's Dickinsonian oracle recommend rat love? You decide.

Unable are the Loved to die
For love is Immortality,
Nay, it is Deity -

Unable they that love - to die
for Love reforms Vitality
Into Divinity.
(E. Dickinson, 951).