Keeping Vigil

for Eric

A hunter, prowling on a summer's eve
tries to subtract a cottontail from the woods.
A boy finds it in the tall grasses
thrashing about, blood in its ears,
he wants to save the rabbit.
He places it on a yellow towel
inside a cardboard box, feeds it fresh lettuce
and thin carrot roots from the garden.
He thinks on a name, Peter perhaps or Dyno.
The boy watches as its bleeding slows
the rabbit darts randomly around
in the box claws scratching,
scratching. He sees the rabbit list left,
then right, and fall onto it's side.
As its breathing stills he pets the soft
brown fur, wills it to live. In the morning
the rabbit is rigorous. The boy still sees
the soft rise and fall of its sides,
in and out, in and out. A tear stains
his dirt-smudged cheek.

I wrote this one four years ago when my son Eric was not yet a teenager. We blamed this bunny's death on our cat Sabrina, but it turns out several years later my daughter Jackie fessed up to shooting it with a b-b gun. Although our cat Sabrina is the best rabbit hunter around, I think she caught 9 0r 10 this year, this was not one of hers. There is still a wooden cross by the side of our road that says Dyno.