By Mary Oliver
I come upon him and he is
startled; he glides
to the rock's rim; he wheels, setting in motion
the stripes of his body, yet not going
anywhere. And though the books say
it can't be done, since his eyes are set
too far apart in the narrow skull, I'm not
lying when I say that he lifts his face and looks
into my eyes and I look back until
we are both staring hard
at each other. He wants to know
just where in this bright, blue-faced world
he might be safe. He wants to go on with the
flow of his life. Then he straightens
his shining back and drops
from the rocks and rockets through
the tangle of weeds, sliding, as he goes, over
my bare foot. Then it vanishes
into the shade and the grass, down to
some slubby stream, having
startled me in return. But this is a
small matter. What I would speak of, rather,
is the weightless string of his actually soft and
nervous body; the nameless stars of its eyes.
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Paul worked from home on Monday so that he could pick up his contacts from the optometrist, so we also got to pick up bagels, stop at Shaw's for a couple of necessities we forgot over the weekend, and finally visit Crust, which I knew was behind Shaw's and had fresh bread and pastries. One of the bunnies was on our neighbor's lawn all morning and afternoon, and we saw four other ones (including a mom and baby) on our walk. I'm hoping we might get some goslings like the Washingtonian Lake gaggles:
Evening TV has been the season finale of Daredevil, a show I like better when it's courtroom drama than vigilante violence, and I can't really root for the keffiyeh- I mean mask-wearing crowd any more than I can root for Trump and ICE I mean Fisk and the AVTF. But speaking of things I find problematic, now we're watching the last season of Hacks, and I adore Jean Smart but I still can't look at Hannah Einbinder so I'm probably too sensitive about how they gave the Madison Square Garden booker a Jewish name.
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