Riverside Cottontails (Part 4 of 4)
(From Boyhood Tales)

Summer
was coming to an end,
I had spent many,
many days
in my valley
up at Riverside,
sometimes
watching the cars
race around the track
through binoculars
that could have been
stronger.
I watched the tiny people
sardined into the stands,
assailed by the roar
of unmuffled
big bore
engines,
thinking they were
having fun,
unaware of my spying
from the rocky escarpment,
not too far away.

The hunt
grew less and less
as I spent more
and more time
laying on my ledge
a hundred feet above
the valley floor,
observing,
learning,
melding my soul
into this place.

I saw rabbits
frolicking
breeding,
living their lives
in peaceful seclusion,
except for the
occasional coyote,
and the ever present
hawk
that sometimes dropped
from the sky.

I learned,
there were
kangaroo rats,
mice,
banded squirrels,
birds,
reptiles of various kinds,
a sidewinder,
and a badger
that lived there too.
I learned
their was a hierarchy
among rabbits,
and that
just like people
they could be mean
too.

September was nigh,
school was about to start,
and my summer,
so wonderful
and full,
was fixing to end,
and though I didn't know it yet,
we were going to move,
and I'd never see my valley
again.

Those days
are memories now,
you had to see
what I saw,
feel what I felt,
you had to live it
to understand
the tears,
the drum
in my chest;
memories…
some of my best.

w. james beard, jr.