Living in Silence

 

 

I didn't see him at first, motionless, staring straight ahead. Except for his location in front of my shed I would not have seen him. It wasn't the first time the rabbit appeared in the yard. Early morning or just before sunset, he quietly hops down the hill, eats whatever scraps the squirrels have left and hops back up.

I am surprised at his audacity. My yard is far from an accommodating environment for rabbits with very little food, too many predators. Yet the rabbit returns daily. I've seen him nibble silently among the rambuctious squirrels who constantly fight and chase each other. He's fearless in the presence of the deer who walk around him as if he doesn't exist. Even my two cats ignore him.

At the bottom of the food chain, a rabbit's life is short and often ends violently. It becomes too easy to anthropomorphize the rabbit's behavior in terms of how people would act.  What I label as audacious behavior may be simply nature's way of ensuring that the rabbit possesses the skills to survive. His silent behavior doesn't draw attention to himself and his so-called fearlessness could just be his innate knowledge that short of an accident, the squirrels and deer will do him no harm.

So I wait for him each morning, scanning the ground for his dark eyes, his white tail. A silent presence in the noise of life.