Ballad of a Rabbit Girl

When I was little I had a teddy bear and my sister had a rabbit skin as soft as the little blonde hairs on my stomach.  But we were switched.  My sister is strong-minded like a black bear and mothering as a grizzly.  Her feet are as beautiful and powerful as paws and she can climb a tree like she was raised in the forest. 

But I am a rabbit-hearted girl.  A member of the Leporidae; silent and waiting and anxious.  I listen and watch and assess, and then I make my move.  I create false trails, I question my judgment.  I am tall and stand up straight to look for predators.  I burrow under blankets and when the snow comes I turn pale to blend in.  I want companionship but I feel threatened and nervous and fleeting.  My thoughts are quick, I get places quick; without stimulation I am bored.  I wear forest green and the brown of mud; I become the leaves which I peek out from.  I can hear my own breathing.  My knowledge of my surroundings is intimate.  I have dug tunnels through my streets, I know every path away from enemies; I have built a warren around me.  Substantial structural change means I must adapt before winter.  I may be tall but I still know how to see the ground.  I make tracks and remember where I saw a puddle, a leaf, a snail. 

When I saw a new kind of bird I knew things were changing.  He was brown with white speckles, like snow had fallen on him and that’s when I knew winter was here, and the next day it started snowing.  There are no more leaves to hide in, and even the grass is blanketed in snow.  The trees are bare but it wouldn’t matter because I can only hop, and I can’t jump high enough to hide in a tree. 

I know it’s time to change, to don black to attract the sun though I will stand out against the snow.  I know it’s time to feast in preparation for the cold though I won’t be lean for running.  I know it’s time to come back to my burrow where it smells of smoke and garlic and fur, but I have been gone so long and I smell of sticks and frost and soot.  I know it’s time to go back where the bear waits in my tunnels, and from this thought I gather courage; that a bear could see strength in a rabbit.

I saw the fox today and didn’t run.

I know it’s not the largest leap but somehow I feel stronger.  I have remembered that I have claws, and that rabbits can chitter and stomp and scream and growl.  I have remembered that I have jobs to do and people to look out for even though I’m not so mighty.  And I may be delicate, and quiet and not so potent, but I am a rabbit girl and I found courage in the firmness of a bear.