Riverside Cottontails (Part 1)
(From Boyhood Tales)

Riverside;
the raceway
off in the distance,
nothing between us
but grassy plain,
sloping down to the
highway,
and air;
a world
of separation.

Riverside;
civilization,
rules and regulation,
buy this,
buy that;
stop,
don't,
do…
Why?

I see their misery
off to my left,
at the raceway
and beyond
from the
rocky escarpment
upon which I sit
high above it all,
free from the chains,
but not the knowledge,
not the knowing
that come night,
there
I'll be.

But for now,
it's not that way,
now I'm free,
nature's creature,
top of the food chain,
the hunter,
eyeing the valley
to my right,
watching the cottontails
playing among
the mesquite bushes,
and the grass
and rocks,
not knowing
Death
will be sucking
their lives
by the time I leave,
this rocky place
where I hide,
tonight.

w. james beard, jr.


-------


Riverside Cottontails (Part 2)
(From Boyhood Tales)

The heat
in the valley
is sweltering.
Surrounded
by rocky peaks
it's a huge bowl
with the sun
overhead
beaming waves
of energy down,
reflecting off
bare rock,
gathering
in the bottom;
the valley,
oval shaped,
several hundred yards
wide,
a couple
long,
a haven for it's
inhabitants
from the perils
of life…
except for me.

Me,
the hunter,
that found it
by accident,
decimating
the population
that exploded
in the sanctuary
it offered;
an over-populated den
that would have been
rent by disease
if I hadn't come along.

But altruistic I'm not.
Disease never entered
my youthful mind;
only rabbits,
hundreds of them,
everywhere I looked,
cottontails,
white meat,
and they were mine
for the taking…
let the harvest
begin.

w. james beard, jr.