My Father. His Rabbits.

/ 1N 1 /1 W f ? ^i-. <& V N. r [^ MY FATHER. HIS RABBITS. In my dreams they return as they should, my father's rabbits I loosed one day when I was four, the year that he, too, left— not suspecting how wildly they strained toward field and wood, or that even our deep yard, rimmed with roses, seemed merely extension of cage. They appeared reliable and tame as I whispered through the wire, worked the latches; remained with me for awhile browsing clover—their fur, their markings intact, in health and lovely. Perhaps it would not have occurred to desert roof, kin, feed—pit hunger against hunger in a dark rife with owls and traps— if I had not thought to free them. Most, we never saw again. But one or two came back to the edge of our lawn thinner, harried—like him to visit, but never quite within. It is only in my dreams I welcome them truly home. Salving their wounded eyes, patching ears torn by gun and thunder I lift them into their pens, shut the doors, making all as it was before. My father. His rabbits. — Bennie Lee Sinclair 81 ...