Creating a relationship with a plant or animal is not easy.
I’m trying.
This summer’s inter-species projects:
robins
young rabbits
droopy purple pansies
a stand of milkweed.
Befriending a robin should be easier;
we’re both motherhood entangled,
neither thinks about eating each other.
I sing songs in human;
her feathered gang squawks intimidation in reply.
Greenhouse pansies overheat,
drown in rain outside.
Too frail for June,
they need perpetual May.
Luckiest rabbits outsmart predators;
young ones remain immobile.
“Run! Run!
What if I was a cat or a hawk?”
You’re not, it’s thinking;
I’ve heard you singing to the robin.
Envisioning attracting scores of Monarchs,
I told the milkweed they could all stay,
planting around them.
Inevitably a few were removed.
I apologized profusely.
Days went;
singing to Robins,
nursing pansies,
teaching rabbit self-defense,
tomatoes cowering in overcrowded milkweed.
Glimmers of progress amidst folly
inspired such silliness to continue.
Addendum
The robin abandoned an empty nest,
the pansies fostered new life as compost,
overconfident rabbits vanished;
yet Milkweed blooms freely.
Orbs of pink florets
breathe welcome on the breeze,
awaiting arrival of orange and black wings.
I am humbled.
I’m Lynn Hill and that’s my perspective.
