The Black Rabbit Dies

The days shorten. The sunlight wanes. We turn back the clocks to get an edge on the gloom, milking the season for every last drop of light. But even as the year slips into gathering shadow, I feel a welcome dissolution. Some long pressing heaviness is losing its hold. There is a sudden lightening. The smoke is beginning to finally dissipate.

For the last five years I have felt a dark web settling over the world. A shroud of compounding density and creeping paralysis that conspires to smother and leave all dumb or numb and grappling weakly. With my own eyes I saw it take down diamond Venus the morning after the 2004 election. This fume engulfed her as she glittered on the pink edge of dawn. Like the scene in “The Silver Chair” when the Queen of the Underworld throws her green powder into the fire and the children struggle against the spell’s drowse, the atmosphere grew heavy. There came a point when it got so bad I began to implode. I contemplated relief. Getting off planet. Suicide thoughts. Grim.

That’s when the black rabbit flickered in.

He had slipped into our life and taken up residence under the shed near our door. Like a spook, he appeared out of nowhere, hovering at the edges of the yard nibbling and blinking. Silent emissary from another realm.

One afternoon as evening was coming on, he stood in a patch of white flowers and gazed intently into me. In that moment he embodied the dark thing that had settled on me. Full of a breathless whisper about soul surrender, he held it and transformed it like a magician messenger and friend. That was the beginning of my ascent out of constriction and the thinning of the haze.

My heart lightened enough that day to write a bit about him before bed that night. I eventually attached a mournful tune to the words and it became what I now joke of as my beatnik dirge of existential angst. But just recently we heard news of him. He was discovered by a neighbor, weak and ill. He was taken in and tended but he didn’t live. He always was one heartbeat away from fading into dream. Now he is one.

Black rabbit
in the shadows,
my soft and
subtle friend.
There between
the white flowers
drooping on
their stems.

No words here
to speak of
this sadness
you imply.
Standing there
at the edge
of dusk,
shape shifting
at a sigh.

One foot upon
a quick death
flashing
dark and fleet.
One heartbeat
away from
fading
into dream.

Do you conjure magic?
Can you weave a spell?
Cast your net upon me,
my fortune for to tell.

The world’s grown
so small now,
in tangled
straining lines.
Traps the subtle
subtle softness
in a noose
of lies.

I tremble,
stand and quiver.
My heart is
small and tight.
The only light
A gleaming sliver
in your wet
black eye.

Do you conjure magic?
Can you weave a spell?
Cast your net upon me,
my fortune for to tell.