Scenes from last night’s performances at the 2012 NAS Oceana Air Show…
Rabbit Update and a Publication Note
The rabbits now spend their days exploring the shed and deck and irises, stretching their boundaries more and more as they grow. But they aren’t so mature that they are willing to skip a meal with their mother. They predictably return to the ginger lilies each evening, where she meets them after dark.
Even though they still nurse, they have become competent grazers. It’s fun to watch them experiment with the yard’s various weeds and flowers.
Publication Note: My poem “Ink” appeared at vox poetica earlier this month. It’s now posted on the poemblog.
Weekend Air Show
The Rabbits Lose Their Nest
This is the last image I have of the rabbits in their nest. At the time I took this picture, near nightfall on September 7th, there were three babies visible in the nest and a fourth hiding under the woodpile. Later that night, an unknown predator destroyed the nest and took two of the young rabbits.
What was it? Is there a way to name the hunger that crossed our fence in the dark? And what would I gain, in giving it a name?
The next day was one of uncertainty. How many had survived? One of them stayed visible all day, exposed and exhausted. I feared that it’s inexperience would lure another predator into the yard.
As it turns out, two of the baby rabbits survived. I have no way to know whether or not the rabbits grieve for their loss. All I know is that they go on. They sleep and graze, grow and explore. They live.
I’m sad about the lost rabbits, but less so than I might have been in the past. It’s a matter of perspective, and today’s date eclipses the yard’s small tragedies. Eleven years ago, I spent a week in front of my television, paralyzed with horror.
I felt, then, as if I would never again know joy. As if all of my future hours should be spent remembering and mourning. Except the world continued to turn and I couldn’t sustain my grief. Paper and ashes stopped falling from the sky. Piles of rubble disappeared. Names and stories quit flooding my dreams at night and swirled into the slow current of memory. Today I am able to sit quietly beside those memories and study a calmer reflection, one less distorted by ripples of fear. And tomorrow, when the Earth’s rotation delivers another new day, I’ll stand in the weedy expanse of my yard and take another picture of rabbits. Because all of my future hours should not be spent remembering and mourning. They should be spent living.
Update from the Rabbit Nest
Between midnight and morning on September 8, an unknown predator destroyed the rabbit nest. (Previous posts about the rabbit nest can be found on August 25, August 27, August 30, September 4, and September 7.)
When we first discovered the damage, we searched the yard to see if any of the babies had survived. We found only one. It had somehow escaped to the far side of the yard and was cowering next to the fence, too stunned to seek safer cover. It remained in that spot through the day, alternating between sleep and quivering tension.
As shadows lengthened into evening the baby crept back to the nest, though it stopped short of entering the ruined shelter. When the mother rabbit emerged from her hiding place under the deck, about an hour later, a second survivor appeared. The new arrival, one of the litter’s largest siblings, dashed out of the ginger lilies and dove into a tuft of tall grass near the nest. The following video shows their twilight reunion, as well as tonight’s nursing session.
Rae Spencer 