Desert: The Rabbits

This time of year, if I come out early enough in the morning, when the air is still cool and the shadows on the ground are long and dark, I will see the rabbits as I approach the Grove. They live in a colony there, in the brush along the washes. They hear my approach and most of them begin scampering away as they hear by heavy noisy feet. I usually talk to them as I approach, greeting them with good morning. If I come out later in the day, in the blazing afternoon sun, I will not see them, but I know they are hidden in the coolness of the vegetation that hides them.

There is at least one rabbit that is bolder than the others, and it will sometimes linger as I approach, sitting in place in the dry grass. I call him Ernest---Ernest Bunny. He will stand in place as I talk to him, sitting sideways to me as rabbits do, to stare at me with his big dark eye in the middle of his small furry brown body. His ears are turned to me, in reverse imitation of the antennas that in the old days we called by the name of "rabbit ears." If I stop and greet him, he may continue munching on the yellow grass. All the green shoots of early spring are gone by now, so the yellow stalks are the best remaining. He will stay there as I long as I stand still and talk to him, but when I begin moving, he will run away.

The Desert, I have learned comes alive in the summer. One would think the opposite, but the change from March to April is unmistakable, as if all the animals---mammals, birds, reptiles, and insects alike--- arrive after a long sojourn.