Kill the Wabbit

Mark has a thing about bunnies, and I'm not talking Playboy.  Er, at least I don't think I am.  Anyway, where was I?

Oh, yeah.  Mark and bunnies.

I'm pretty sure Mark was born with his mom's gardening gene, because, ever since I've known him, he has had a thing about plants.  And, peripherally, bunnies.  Specifically, bunnies that eat his plants.

"A story of frustration and defeat and despair.  Of dreams dashed."  These are Mark's words, spoken just now, as he asked what I was blogging about.  (Now I'm starting to think that maybe he does have a thing about Playboy bunnies. . . . ) He also said I should quit calling them "bunnies."  "They're rabbits, just like a stomach is a stomach and not a 'widdle tummy'."

Whatever.

Mark's battle with Bugs and company took a turn for the worse a few summers ago when the two of us were enjoying a little crossword battle on the patio.  At one point, we both looked up from our papers (mine much more filled out than his, by the way, but who's keeping track?) just in time to see a towering  Loosestrife jerk madly back and forth.  And, just as suddenly, at the hands of a tiny lumberjack, one final "whack" from its bunnicular bicuspids and the whole plant just toppled down.  WHAM!  Right in front of us.

I swear to God I heard a whispered "timber!"

Since then, there have been wire cages, live traps (successful last year, considering there are now six relocated rabbits doing it like bunnies at Woods Park) and, last weekend, even talk of borrowing an air rifle, which I immediately pooh poohed, imagining backyard neighbors Wayne and Pam looking out to see Mark aiming in their general direction some morning.  Our reputation is shaky enough without going all Duck Dynasty on them.

For some reason this year, the trap is basically worthless, acting more like a Kwik Shop where young rabbits pop in for a cheap snack and a pack of Winstons. And the cages are like highway on-ramps to the latest produce stand. As for the gun?  Thank goodness the gun is still at our friend's house.

And the bunnies--er, rabbits? Well, it's like a Bacchanalia back there--a mammalian frat-house party, complete with dancers and debauchery.  They cannot cram the plants down their gullets fast enough.  I'll be surprised if we aren't labeled a party house by the cops pretty soon.

Where's Elmer Fudd when you need him?!

No More Monkeys Jumpin' on My Bed

It is 5:15 a.m. and, already, I can see the outline of our crab apple against a lightening sky.

Now, it is 5:17 and, while I am appalled that that first sentence took two minutes to write itself, I cannot help but notice that, already, the robin out back sounds like an AM station, repeating its earlier songs in a dependable if somewhat limited rotation.

. . . much like the monkey mind that has gripped me this spring.

And I think to myself what a waste it is, this well-worn record of imaginary conversations filling up my head when everything else should garner my attention.

So, today--right now, actually--I reach into my head for that tiresome LP, letting my nails draw themselves against its uneven grooves, hoping to do some damage, and I take that song out of rotation for good.  No more fiddle farting around, I tell myself.  It is time to pay attention to other things.  Real things.

Like the aching beauty of the golden chain tree out front, scragglier than it was last year, yet still adorned with a hundred languorous, perfumed necklaces hanging off its branches.

Or the far-off rumble of Lincoln's midnight train as it slows into Denver with Eric and Kate aboard.

I turn my attention to Finn--my one, true disciple--now curled up at my feet, his rough fur expanding and contracting while he dreams of bunnies and bad breath.

It's working!  Already, I struggle to remember the smeared edges of my imaginary conversation, its hard-to-read words slipping out my left ear.

What ho! I say to myself.  And I laugh, having never uttered that saying before.  But I like how it feels on my tongue, the way it lightens me as it whorls in my mouth, unfamiliar and tingly, leaking through my puffed up cheeks.

What ho, indeed, this day before me, chock full of promise.

And I feel my body turn consciously towards it, open to its possibilities.

A Poem for MKK

There is a bridge that runs between us
weaving its way through the incessant rains of the overnight
and I know that you too are awake,
the soles of my feet thrumming with you

I can feel your eyes, jarred open by questions,
your restless legs seeking refuge
the cool sheets holding you,
however imperfectly

And this love between us?
That tenuous string stretching across rough pavement?
It is, somehow, enough for me
--despite everything, 
despite all the endless downpours of unknowing that seep into the
groundswell.

Still, the cardinal sings,
wings wet with the residue of a dozen
overnight storms

Still, the robin burbles,
pecking small holes in its nest so that its flightless young won't drown

And still the lowly grasses stretch their swollen blades to a morning
they know is just around the corner.

We are baptized--each of us--in these spring storms,
made new again somehow.