It had been raining all night,
quiet rain that caressed the roof tiles of my cottage.
By mid morning it stopped
and in early afternoon
the ground was dry enough for a long walk.
Bambi, my dog, was ecstatic
she liked hunting for rabbits,
never caught any,
like me she was too slow, too fat
and made too much noise.
We followed our usual track,
minutes from the road
and anyone who didn’t know the area would be lost.
This time of the year (November)
the landscape is very green
from shimmering verdant to serious olive,
only tall, bragging weeds resist the temptation to conform
and are resolutely yellow.
While my myopic dog
raced clumsily after something she thought was a rabbit
I found one, a bunny,
sitting very still by the exposed root of a blighted tree,
picked it up stroked its neck and ears,
soft like a cuddly toy
and it looked at me without fear,
put it down again
told it to run away, it didn’t.
By now Bambi was back,
saw the bunny
and quickly killed it,
the only time she ever caught a rabbit.