Rabbit, Rabbit

I am as still as the rabbit

I see from the corner of my eye,

fixed firm under the apple tree,

which we planted as a family,

the year our daughter

broke her arm swinging madly

with joy out of her bed

to get the day going.

Flattened,

I wonder if there is a predator

out of my sight beyond the hedge.

I have a small bit of yard,

but it is enough in the U.S.D.A. Garden Zone 6

that is our family home.

It feeds us through the summer with salads,

in winter with jam and applesauce,

a memory of buds in bloom

with each sweet bite.

This paradise lifted us

through a recession that left us deficient

and brought the wild to rest and eat by our doorstep.

Distress turned this plot into apple trees;

raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries followed.

Last year was the season of the volunteers-

pumpkins from the previous Halloween

lurched across the yard.

A cantaloupe tried to be as full as the moon,

that I see from our upstairs window in July.

It is now mid-May and apple flowers are in blossom.

This rabbit has stayed in our yard,

chosen the clover over the intermittent danger

of our house-bound feline

that escapes from time to time.

I am at a distance, trying to deduce

what I think is a girl, from the softness of her features.

Needing the whole picture, I go inside to observe,

taking care to keep the cat inside.

From the window, I see

she darts back and forth to some dry patches of native grasses,

rips them out, carries them in her teeth, and pats them into a hole.

The discretion of camouflage hides her kits.

I had interrupted as an unwanted guest of their birth.

My little girl

who will be home from school soon,

will welcome the news

of baby bunnies with joy.

The radio is on and I hear of another

school shooting in Texas.

Multiple children are killed,

the same age as my daughter.

I think of how the mother rabbit,

in another patch of land, would be shot

with the label on her life as a varmint,

without much thought,

to her place in the order of life.

I grieve for all of the mothers and fathers

who will never see their children grow up.

Unlike the milkweed gone to seed in the wind,

there will be no further implantation

into the universe of these unique lives,

and the lives after and after and after…

I mourn that a young girl

had to cover herself with blood

from her teacher to survive,

while this rabbit collected greenery

like a discerning shopper at the market.

Rabbit, rabbit!

It is not the first of the month,

nor within the first hour of the sun,

yet I am lucky this afternoon

with this unforeseen meeting

and this rabbit seems luckier to me.