Tag Archives: suffering

The Rabbit

It’s a few feet from the verge, looking slow and disoriented in our approaching headlights. Ben slows down to a crawl, fearful of hitting it.

“It makes me so angry!” says Karen. “No, we can’t leave it like that. Myxy is such a terrible death – they’re suffering so much!”

“D’you want me to run it over, love?”

I can feel Enya tense up beside me, gripping my hand, as Ben reverses the car a hundred yards, halts, then engages first and floors the accelerator.

“Get a clean shot!”

The rabbit wavers, and Ben swerves slightly.

Thud.

My body whole body spasms, spine tensing and tingling.

The car stops, and they look back in the darkness.

“Not sure. Did I get it properly?”

“Yes, yes.”

Ben seems ready to get out and take a look.

“Honestly. That was a clean hit. It’s dead.”

The good deed’s done.

Equinox

As the hot water runs prematurely cold
Do I step into
A bath half empty or half full?
Do the spotless clothes and sparkling plates
Embrace and serve me,
Or mock and hinder, having
Squandered all warmth in unattended day?

I am facing both ways –
A shoot shivering into hapless Spring
Wondering:
Will this release from waiting
Wind up into tendrils of gold,
Or fall back, burnt by a cold snap?

Do they dread the Spring?
Or is it a joyful surge again into outward being –
Not fearful of remembered, wrestling lives
Of cold, drought and strangulation?

Ambiguously somehow,
Hope and retraction disquietly hang
On this balance day.