The Rabbit, The Web, and The Dead Baby Birds
Frozen ash brown rabbit on emaciated legs
A single strand of web
Angled from tree to porch
Holding a lone drop glistening
Like the eyes of that still wild thing
It crosses between us
In the night, a mythic force field preserving courage
My husband lied about the fallen baby birds
Until I found their mother the next day
fallen
thrown
jumped
Onto the concrete below
Very near where her babies landed with necks askew
Is it possible to understand a rabbit, a web, a mother bird?
I imagine that I can…
sometimesihatemycat 
I can smell the earth–and carcasses. What a description. Assuming this poem is has a literal basis, I hope the real six-year-old in the house didn’t find out. Sometimes lying seems right. Or is it a lost opportunity to … to what?
Thanks so much for reading. All of my poems come from some literal place/experience. It seems somehow that I feel better if I can put my experiences into writing. I know no other way to write that feels as authentic. I was carrying around the dead mother bird (in my thoughts) for a week, and only felt relief once I wrote about her. I was prompted to write it after our Monday night meditation and the poem read by Alan. I did not tell Leia about it, mostly because she missed the entire thing being at Grandma’s house. She didn’t even know the nest was there. She will have plenty of opportunitites to learn about death, but I would rather her learn honestly from her own experience and not one that I impose. Plus I feel a but selfish about it…it was my find, my nest, my mother bird, my babies, my poem. However odd that sounds. Thanks again. I appreciate that you are reading.