Lauren Camp’s poem points to the surprise intersection of destruction and tenderness, a place that some men have surely occupied at some point or another.
—
Rabbits
One Sunday morning I was digging a hole
for a thyme. Warm sun sat on my knees.
I shoved a red-handled trowel to earth,
and pressed with the heel of my hand.
The blade squealed as I poked open
a hole filled fine with fur
to a kindle swaddled in twigs
and dry leaves, coated in ground.
The light-bruised hollow was wrong,
and no longer beneath, so I patched
the warren with layers of land,
veiled out the light. Two mornings later
(with the mother still AWOL),
David woke early from worry. Pulled on
old jeans. Outside, he gathered
the five tender forms
in his gloved palm. They wriggled
and he wrapped them in cloth
and he put them soft in a dishpan,
green as spring. Light was seeded
with gray. He might have talked to them,
everything he never says
about hunger and need. He held them
under the faucet by the apricot tree,
where nature was climbing the bark
and its branches. He covered them in water
while I slept, consecrated those five
alone bodies in sleep
while the warm-flowered dawn
helped me plant dreams. I saw what I saw
through closed eyes as tree shadows fell,
and the effort
exhausted him,
the moisture poured over those hearts.
***
First published in Sin Fronteras
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Chad, (Edited – I apologize for writing too quickly to the moment.) Thank you very much for responding to this poem, which you got, believe me. As you point out, “[i]t is not tender; it is expedient; self-important; lazy, cruel.” I have had friends who have nursed orphaned baby rabbits and squirrels, and as you observe, these five creatures could have been taken to a wildlife rehab center. Their deaths were possibly wholly unnecessary and unjustified. And yes, why does the David in the poem drown the five baby rabbits while his wife sleeps – the questions you ask are… Read more »
Chad, Thank you for responding to this poem, which you got, believe me. As you point out, “[i]t is not tender; it is expedient; self-important; lazy, cruel.” I have had friends who have nursed orphaned baby rabbits and squirrels, and as you observe, this five creatures could have been taken to a wildlife rehab center. Their deaths were wholly unnecessary and unjustified. And yes, why does the David in the poem drown the five baby rabbits while his wife sleeps – the questions you ask are all completely on point. While he states “[w]e didn’t know what to do,” Mr.… Read more »
Hi Chad,
Thanks for weighing in. As I always tell my poetry students, the speaker of a poem is not necessarily the poet herself. And poetry, like fiction, needn’t be based in reality. Perhaps this really happened, perhaps it didn’t. And even if it did, are you sure this is what the speaker wants and is condoning? She gives no indication that she approves or disapproves of his actions.
One possible purpose for poetry is to tell a human story and provoke a human reaction. Clearly, this poem succeeded in doing that, hence why I published it.
OMG, you accidentally disturb a rabbit’s nest, and your boyfriend decides to solve the problem by drowning the rabbits? What happens if a bird flies into your window glass? What happens if you hit a dog with your car? Whatever you do, don’t leave him alone with a sick kid. Why do you write about this as if it is tender? It is not tender; it is expedient, self-important, lazy, cruel. And, why does he decide their fate while you sleep on? Does he not need to consult you? He knows you’d want him to kill them? He knows you… Read more »
As the David in the true story told in this poem, I’d like to reply. This was the situation: The mother rabbit had created her warren by climbing up a drainpipe that takes runoff from our rain gutters and puts it, first into the flower beds next to our house, then channels any overflow several yards away into the arroyo. She had traveled through a pipe with no idea that the underground end was less than three feet from our door. When Lauren went to dig this small hole with her hand trowel, she uncovered very newly born creatures. They… Read more »