I remembered when I was 17 and this land was a soy bean field
surrounded by brush piles and Multiflora rose.
Out the East window of the Berkshire house
I watched coyotes worry a brush pile.
The pressure on the rabbit to run, mounted.
I wondered if uncertainty and fear
would cause the rabbit
to abandon caution and make a run for it.
Run? But to where?
Just another clump of Multiflora rose or brush pile?
So another cycle of intimidation and fear could begin?
The largest coyote jumped on top of the brush pile
and began digging and yelping.
Could the coyote reach the rabbit by scratching at the limbs?
Who knows? Terror is a great motivator.
To much for the rabbit.
It raced out of the brush pile and had a 30 yard
head start before the coyotes knew it was gone.
The race was on.
200 yards to the bank of the creek.
The coyotes were gaining.
Out of nowhere a shadow over head, talons reached forward ,
the rabbit screamed and was airborne.
The coyotes stopped running, milled around looking puzzled,
as they watched their almost meal disappear into the wild blue yonder.
The rabbit was erased by something it did not see coming.
There are no more soy beans,
no more brush piles, no more multiflora rose
no more rabbits.
Only concrete, chain-link fences,
stone and metal buildings, cars,
a loud speaker no one can understand
the squawk of rubber hitting runway,
the whir of automatic sliding doors.
The only animal life are little dogs
wearing colorful clothing, tugging
at leashes held by old women.
All the humans wear faces pinched with anxiety
and uncertainty. Wondering if today
is the day they will be erased
by something they can not see coming.
John Clayton lives in rural Maries County, Missouri with his wife, Dawn, on 56 acres where, with the exception of invasive spices and the garden, nature is left to her own devices. John has been published in Gasconade Review and online in Wine Drunk Sidewalk: Ship Wrecked in Trumpland.
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