Rabbits are born and live out their stories in the same patch their entire lives. The lineage of the fat rabbit I see in the spring may have begun sixty-seven generations back, when the park was first established. After a month or so of observing her in April, she allows me the honor of seeing her two small cottontails, the next generation. They’re never in sight for long before they scurry away to the low brush.
My dog Elsa has old eyes. They may catch the bunnies on the run. Yet, her little legs tire as soon as the furries stop moving. Neither can her thinning olfactory glands sniff out their burrows. I’m pretty sure the rabbits are on to her as they don’t go far. All to say, the wildlife in the little city park seems safe.
Except it isn’t.
On a chilly November morning, I approached the far side of the park with Elsa. I wondered if the rabbits had burrowed in for the winter. I glanced over to the street side of the park to see gardeners unloading a backhoe from their truck. They wasted no time starting that thing up and ramming through the waist-high boxwood hedge to the middle of the garden, ripping out vegetation where the rabbits live.
“Hey! Stop!”
With Elsa at my heels, I barged through the boxwood on my side of the park, flailing my arms. I was about to jump in front of the moving machinery. The driver stopped. His companion came to me.
“What about the bunnies?” I shouted.
“No English!” he shrugged.
“The rabbits! The rabbits! They live there!”
He laughed at me and signaled to the backhoe driver to keep going. They were having a ball.
That was it. I had no choice in the matter. The feral gardeners yanked all the underbrush, faded lilies and droopy irises. They removed the clumpy hostas that cover wild animals and the prairie asters that catch goldfinches and warblers. The backhoe dug holes for six newly planted baby trees.
December is here now. Arborists removed honey locusts and hackberries that no one realized were distressed. The winter trellis of bare branches is spare. Above and below the wide open space leaves no comfort. No place to hide. The left-behind soft brown and grey prairie grass, goldenrod and hydrangea are fallow and forlorn.
But all will be lovely in the spring. And the ancestral rabbits will return.
Whenever one of my dogs died I experienced profound grief that turned to sadness, for a time. A season of sadness. These days, sadness lasts longer. It’s not because my dog died but because so much is out of my control, like the displaced rabbits. I pray not for the sadness to leave me, but to manage to live with it. I have a sense many seasons of sadness are afoot. All may not be lovely this spring.
I wish I had saved those bunnies.
Regan Burke 
Thanks for sharing Regan I feel sad also but you sure tried to save the rabbits Hopefully we will see some rabbits next Spring Wishing you a blessed Christmas
Ellen🎄🙏
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Hope springs eternal, especially in the Spring. Don’t be so sure those bunnies were doomed. After all, they didn’t get to the sixty eighth generation by being scared off by loud machines and uncaring caretakers. Those bunnies are plenty smart. I picture them in a new location, maybe one more off the beaten path where they can dig in for the winter. It’s sweet and reassuring that so many people care though for the least among us. I am sure we’ll see them no later than next Easter. 🙂
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I’ll be searching!
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You are such a gre
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So sorry about Elsa. So hard to outlive our loved ones. A song I like reminds me that “grief is the price we pay to stay alive.” The rabbits were unsavable. You would have just wound up fined or in jail.
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Jeff. I’m trying to write shorter sentences. This rabbit piece seems stilted to me as a result. Whaddya think? I edited out a reference to myself having a tiamenan square moment because it seemed too dramatic. Your comment makes me think I got there without that reference.
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I like pieces that are sparsely written. Something I don’t do very often. They make the reader think. But they definitely have a different flow than descriptive writing. While I didn’t think of Tiamenan square, I certainly envisioned that sort of stand off. I think you nailed it.
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Thank you Regan for your thoughts and invitation to join your blog subscribers – I’m in !!
I live between LaSalle and Wells Streets, my 16th floor window overlooks the large block where Atrium Village once stood – now occupied by 3 luxury apartment buildings, each at least 30 stories tall. For years, I would walk along Hill Street and delight in the bunny families that lived amongst the shrubs and perennials.
6-7 years ago I looked out my window and saw a scene resembling the destruction of the forest around Suraman’s Tower in Lord of the Rings. Trees torn up and laid out on the ground; bulldozers & front end loaders gouging the earth, displacing mounds of soil. My first thought was like yours; Oh No – the Rabbits ?!! I was heartbroken, panicky, powerless. It hurt then and still provokes sadness sometimes when I look out my window.
I do hope there exist offspring of those rabbit clutches I once cherished – to see them running through the grasses and hydrangeas that line walkways between the apartment towers. I do hope and pray for the resilience of life and Goodness whatever the next season brings.
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