To stay open
is what I wanted.
Though winter and war
have taught me
the importance of refuge.
Even then, like a wild rabbit
that is no less soft
and no less gentle
inside its dark burrow,
the heart in its shelter
finds ways to stay open,
if not to the world,
at least to whatever
it is that shines
through the self,
and the deep remove
becomes a chance
to steep in tenderness
before re-emerging again
into the world
with all its threats
and dangers,
with all its green
and radiant beauty.
Posts Tagged ‘rabbit’
Heart Medicine
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged heart, opening, rabbit, refuge, shelter on March 21, 2026| 4 Comments »
Close Encounters
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bunny, grace, grief, rabbit, son on July 1, 2025| 18 Comments »
It was a little mangy, to be honest,
the rabbit in the forest that came close to me—
close enough I could see the way sunlight
made his long ears glow pink. Close enough
for me to coo and praise his remarkably long rabbit feet,
praise the white socks of his fur,
praise the bright brown of his eyes.
Even his patchy, uneven molting couldn’t stop me
from falling in love with the way he leapt
from fallen trunks into patches of bluebells.
We were all staring at him, all six of us,
wondering why he would come so close,
but I took his appearance personally—
like when we read a fortune cookie fortune
and believe there was a bit of our destiny in it.
I cannot see a bunny without believing it’s my son.
I know. It isn’t my son. I also know it is.
Every bunny reminds me he was here.
Every bunny is a chance to push past
my rational mind and fling open the doors
of love. Every bunny, especially this one who
comes so close, seems to say, Sweetheart,
don’t you believe in grace? And as the bunny
leaps from log to duff, I think, I do, I do, I do.
Widening the Vision
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged anger, multitudes, perspective, rabbit, vision on February 10, 2025| 12 Comments »
Almost by accident
I saw through the blaze
of my anger and fear
to the bunny in the yard,
his sweet brown body
so still and attentive
in the short brown grass,
and it’s not that I
became any less angry,
but when I let myself be held
by his steady brown eye,
I was touched by gentleness
and remembered what else
I am capable of. Oh self, this
is how you stay whole hearted—
by keeping your eyes wide open.
Now That the Stakes Are Low
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bunny, garden, letting go, rabbit, release on July 10, 2024| 11 Comments »
For the fourth time in four weeks,
I slip my spade into the dark soil
of the half-circle garden.
I make twenty shallow holes,
then lift the pansies from crinkly
plastic containers and drop
the root-bound squares into the earth.
Within hours, the small brown bunny
arrives with his pink twitchy nose
and his small round lump
of soft bunny body,
and while I wash dishes
I meet through the window
his innocent, unblinking gaze
as he consumes a dozen
deep purple petals
in small, efficient tugs.
He looks at me as if to say,
You love me. And I do.
I croon at the bunny how
cute his small ears. How perfect
his bliss. How good he is
for eating his pretty bunny food.
Tomorrow, the rest
of the blooms will be gone.
In a week, the leaves will
be gone, too. Every. Single. One.
And I will go buy more pansies.
How sweet it’s become,
this path of surrender,
the strange joy that rises in me
when I see my precious pansies
nibbled to the roots.
Now that the stakes are low,
it’s much easier to bow
to the way things are.
For the price of pansies,
I can practice again and again
how to find true delight
in this art of letting go.
Springing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged melting, rabbit, spring on March 28, 2024| 16 Comments »
I know the rabbits were here
because the snow is melted
where their bodies have been,
small patches of green grass
in a vast field of white.
When winter is gone, their tracks
will again be invisible,
leaving no way to know when
the rabbits have visited our home.
I marvel at how even an absence
can become precious when we
are aware of what is gone.
Like when I find signs
my boy was here. Just today
I passed a narrow smiley face
on a cottonwood trunk where
he once was with a can of blue
spray pain. Here, a dent
in the wall where his anger
has been. Here, a hole in my life
where his life has been.
Here, the place where
the ache is melting and beneath
the ache more green
than I would have ever dreamed.
Down the Rabbit Hole
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gentleness, loss, rabbit, zodiac on January 23, 2023| 12 Comments »
It’s the Year of the Rabbit,
and I can’t help but think
of the photo of my son
the week before he died
holding a white rabbit in Ecuador—
a rabbit he bought and loved for an hour.
“Mom,” he said through the phone,
“can I bring home a rabbit? Please?”
I told him it wouldn’t make it through customs,
but he could buy one here at home.
It’s the Year of the Rabbit,
and it feels right the crawl spaces
beneath our porches now shelter
the sweetest brown bunnies.
Where did they come from?
Every day now, my husband feeds them
pellets and lettuce. Every day
I watch for their tracks in the snow,
thrill when I see the sweet lumps
of their bodies as they venture into the day.
It’s the year of the Rabbit,
a time, they say, for calm
and patient energy.
I don’t know if I believe in the zodiac,
but I believe in gentleness.
I believe in thinking things through.
I believe in peace.
It’s the Year of the Rabbit,
and I am in love with rabbits—
with their large ears and feet
and their quivering noses
and the way they have hopped their way
into my life bringing softness
where there has been pain,
bringing calm where there has been trauma.
I will go down that rabbit hole.
I will make in that burrow a home.
In the Look
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bunny, gaze, memory, rabbit, seeing, watching on November 27, 2022| 7 Comments »
A bunny knows when it’s being watched,
as if attention itself has a weight.
As if it feels my stare like a rush,
like a threatening hand, like a stroke.
But when I graze the bunny
with a brush of a glance
and with half-lidded eyes,
my body faintly angled to the side,
the bunny will bear
the gravity of my notice
and I may watch all I want
as it nibbles and twitches,
hops and rests.
And so it is I learn to meet my past
with a softened gaze, with gauzy eyes,
to meet a memory slant.
The memories let me linger now,
increasingly unskittish.
I do not try to touch them.
They multiply like rabbits.
Human Nature
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, rabbit, self discovery, wolf on December 20, 2014| 2 Comments »
Somewhere inside us
is a wolf hunting for prey
and marking its territory.
It prowls the perimeter
of our thoughts, scratching
and leaving its scent. There is also
a rabbit in there
who has not yet figured out
she’s wearing a bear costume
that her mom dressed her in long ago.
The wolf has kept its distance
until now, but that rabbit
is getting hot and thinking
how nice it might be to sit out in the field
and feel the sun on her back.
If she takes off that heavy coat,
she will learn fear.
If she doesn’t, she will never
learn who she is.