Poetry by C. DeForest Switzer
She stood her ground beside
the blue tarp, looking up at me in the window
from the new and unknown below.
I stared down, hoping to convey
that everything was okay;
But, of course, it was not.
My family hated the “pests”—
their destructive habits;
the drab, dirty-gray rabbits that lurked
constantly wary but secure,
indifferent,
bolting free with lightning speed…
No problem for Dad;
his pellet gun at the ready.
The offense?
Eating garden plants to nubs —
creatures older than us,
forever in the dark:
now a kit under my deck,
quiet and free of predator’s eyes
Silhouetted in the dusk.
A paper cutout, unconcerned,
nibbling birdseed on the flagstone,
feet away from her ground-level haven.
And me, in the gray twilight,
atop the shelter of her life,
My rustic deck.
As the winter wind blows the snow,
the blue tarp flaps
atop the sheltered haven.
“It’s okay,” I mouth, looking down
from my window above,
motioning with hands and body
as best I can.
“It’s still safe,” I say
to the rabbit looking up at me
Thumping her foot in reply.
C. DeForest Switzer lives in western Iowa’s Loess Hills. He loves the outdoors and studied at Cal State, Chico, competing in a South Lake Tahoe park design contest. He published a poem in the college literary magazine, “Watershed,” and has been writing since. Currently, he’s editing his first novel.
