Sunrise inches forward, chirp by chirp: towhee, white-throated sparrow. A rabbit gazes at me from the end of the porch with eyes dark as cisterns.
cottontail
Monday August 16, 2021
Cloudy with 100% chance of migrating warblers: the yard is briefly possessed. I hear a noise, turn my head and meet a rabbit’s critical gaze.
Monday May 17, 2021
Up early enough for the last of the dawn fog and the wood pewee’s dreamy chant. Two rabbits graze side-by-side in the road.
Saturday April 17, 2021
Overcast and cold. A rabbit is gathering dead grass to line a nest at the end of the herb garden, a few feet from the plastic flamingo.
Saturday January 26, 2019
From under the house, rabbit tracks encircling a half-eaten raspberry cane, raccoon tracks going straight to the stream—muddy on the return.
Friday February 09, 2018
Steady, fine snow—the kind that means business. A rabbit dashes across the springhouse yard and disappears into the crown of a fallen tree.
Thursday January 18, 2018
A tangle of tracks in the yard: rabbit, cat, squirrel, mouse… I’m not picturing a children’s book, but each creature fearful and alone.
Saturday July 16, 2016
A rabbit trots up the road, rounds the bend and continues past the house like the bearer of urgent news. A beetle with red elytra sails by.
Wednesday May 18, 2016
A rabbit in the rain eats grass the way I eat ramen, one long strip disappearing into its mouth, drops flying. A hummingbird buzzes my face.
Saturday May 07, 2016
All the tulip trees I’ve planted over the years are shimmering towers of pale green. A rabbit’s ears twitch in a patch of wild mustard.
Wednesday April 08, 2015
The last of the snow has vanished, and the air shimmers with fine rain. A foraging rabbit keeps pausing to scratch its ear.
Thursday April 02, 2015
Sunny and warm. A rabbit emerges from its burrow to graze on dead grass. Chickadees singing “fee-bee” are interrupted by an actual phoebe.
Monday March 09, 2015
Yesterday’s melting has turned old footprints from pits into little hills. New tracks are muddy brown, fading out by the middle of the yard.
Thursday January 29, 2015
Shrunk in the cold, the porch floorboards pop loudly when I come out. In my snowshoe tracks below the porch, a scattering of rabbit pellets.