Wednesday, October 4
HARES
In thirteen years
of walking the mountain path
hares have been scarce—
I’ve done the math.
In all this time, I’ve
seen maybe four or five.
Droppings I’ve seen
that prove they’re here—
at the crossroads, at the turn.
I picture one dished ear
swivelling left then right
as for a satellite
while the buck sits
and lifts his stone axe head,
one of his sparring mitts
tentatively folded
toward his angular chest,
alert, at rest.
Partridges (or chukars)
I often run across;
they take off in a ruckus
Greeks likened to flatulence—
like rapidly deflating
balloons. If ambulating,
a matron and her brood
bustle down the hill;
ignoring the rude
interloper, they will
pretend to putter
till spluttering aflutter.
I’m not left agog
by them—but for the hare
almost as big as a dog—
there’s no way to prepare
for the huge unlikelihood.
By the time I’ve understood
something drastic
has happened, it bounds
into the bushy mastic
pursued by ghost hounds.
The light’s about to fail
when it turns tail
and the two black tips
of its ears bob away.
To see one’s to eclipse
the rest of the day.
Hares are not born blind.
They are a watchful kind:
I am seen, I bet,
more often than I see.
Right now a leveret
might be eyeing me,
wound up with alarm
to start forth from its grassy form
and add to the slim count
of hares I’ve seen
on the mountain. The amount
might double in thirteen
more years—who can say.
This one leaps away.
(A. E. Stallings)