Thursday Poetry: Rabbits & People

Rabbit and Thing
Illustration uploaded by erat

The Neighbors Debate

When discovered by the social worker,
the yellow rabbit was nibbling blooming
dandelions, violets and clover
on the neighbor's lawn. The circling

cats did not disturb it. The rabbit hopped
up to the cats and touched twitchy noses.
The cats dashed, lickety-split, and dropped
back into hunting-jungle-tiger poses.

The neighbors schemed. Caught and caged,
unperturbed, the rabbit washed its face.
The prison guard said "Let it go."  "Not wild,"
the social worker warned. "And think, the child

who lost it, crying all night," the day-care
worker sighed. The rabbit combed its hair.

[ Poem by SB ]

 

  This week's prompt was:

What do you see when you look at animals? A reflection of yourself? A resource to be used? A kindred part of God's creation? A bundle of physiology and biochemistry?

As it happens, I had this sonnet tucked away on just this topic, and a quick flickr search found the perfect illustration. Some of you have seen this poem before, but it is too perfect for the prompt for me to not post it.

I liked the suggestion of other animals in the graphic, and its sense of confusion; that the viewer must impose her own interpretation upon it. As we do with the other animals, seeing in them both ourselves, and the other.

Comments

[Crafty Green Poet]

LOL. I almost signed myself Crafty green Rabbit there! I love rabbits and you've caught their air of unconcerned peacefulness perfectly there. I particularly like the rabbit and cats touching noses.

[paisley]

how true... what we see is always shaded by our own experience isn"t it???? very nice....

[catnapping]

i think we're all part of the same bowl of pudding.

from a distance...the surface of the earth is more like a marble than an orange, it's sooo smooth. to someone looking at us through a scope, we are one thing. one big round blue sphere.

i think to someone without some microscope to see each little planet...or even each galaxie...we're soup - pudding - what we see as universe...all that, that is open and empty to us, because we're soooooo tiny...is probably not even seen as separate to something larger than we.

and in the same way...i think that when we look at something we think is solid or liquid...all connected...those things in it, waaaaaaay tinier than we, think that they are individual, too. like us, they probably don't realize that they are interconnected.

[Linda Jacobs]

I like the levels of meaning here. It's got me thinking of several metaphors for the bunny.

I like your use of rhyme, too. It's unobtrusive and doesn't lead the poem in a place it doesn't want to go. Excellent control!