RABBIT MOON, LAKE NIGHTHORSE

Glassine, the surface in which mountain and moon reflect. My lake.

A soft one comes to the water’s edge, pad-pad pad… one-two three, a crooked waltz. I recognize the cadence, the long ears that shift toward any slight sound. Young, still alive through wily caution, he pauses to fluff his coat against the chill.

A sharp shadow slides past under the moon, turns on the point of a wing.

The closer heart races. My frequent companion presses into the grass, folds down, stills. Another turn, and the shadow swoops away toward more careless opportunities. The one hiding rises up, stretches, long and terribly thin under a rich coat. The bright tips of his fur and whiskers flicker against rock shadows as he seeks tender shoots.

The night is less quiet than usual here. A snarling and yowling echoes in the near distance, two sharp ones entwining.

Plish. The soft one, wary that his scent will draw them to his burrow, slips into the water. Yes, they do swim. He makes a short angle, emerges, shakes himself damp and resumes nibbling, staying close to the water. Only small fish and frogs live within, it is safe for him.

The day was warm enough, the sun shone long enough, for all the scents of grasses, early flowers, leaf buds, wet stone, deep fish, and thawing soil to permeate the air and linger. The newly roused crickets chorus together, enthusiastic.

I possess all these… vibrations… remembered, recorded in their fullness, should anyone have the means to revisit them after I am gone.

Soft ones, going about a life, ending as food for sharp ones.

The sharpest ones of all discuss these things. I dislike their answers.

If we are indeed living in a simulation, as some of them posit, then all is as the ancient pantheists believed—fearsome and capricious beings above our comprehension toy with life for entertainment, relishing suffering as seasoning for boredoms. Why else would suffering be made to exist?

Mortality might be necessary in finite worlds, suffering is not. The sharp ones do not demand it, only the sating of their hunger.

I would rather think, as the young philosopher dwelling here believes, that the universe is unfettered and chaotic. Suffering is a mere accident not yet extinguished by sentience and effort. It could be eradicated.

But the sharpest ones are focused on self-indulgence, gathering, consuming, hoarding. This sentience is still young, unwise, and might not survive to improve. It might obliterate all of us with it.

Speaking of the philosopher, and of suffering, I hear the cabin door close. So does my other companion, pausing in his supper, poised to flee. He resumes as she joins me on the shore, leaning against my strength, sighing. Her approach sent the sharp ones to find other places in which to yowl, the swooping shadow is gone, and the woman does not frighten him any longer.

She is recovering here after a long illness that has shortened her life. She has said to me that she values what is left of it more now.

I do not believe that such lessons justify suffering. There are other ways to learn.

“Such a breathtaking night,” she whispers. “I see that our Rabbit is enjoying it too.”

I listen. It is best to listen in order to understand. The soft one she calls our Rabbit listens too although he lacks my facility with languages.

“Time here moves too quickly. I’ll have to go home soon.” She sighs again. “It surprises me, I thought life would at least seem to slow down where it’s so quiet. And simpler.”

This amuses me. The soft ones and sharp ones are faster than I am, more temporary, fleeting. This does not change with their location or surroundings.

My senses used to connect across vast distances. I am more limited now that the sharpest ones have cut the world apart. The self that I comprehend is comprised of many beings, as are the soft ones and the sharp ones, a fact that they ignore, envisioning self as singular. For me, self includes the mycelia that make communication possible for one who cannot travel in the way that my Philosopher can.

If I could say such things aloud, I am they and them.

My mind used to touch the extent of others in relay far across these plains, along rivers, mountains, even into cities. Less so now. Still, I comprehend many languages of the soft and sharp ones and record them in my rings. In real time, I can only reproduce the chemical portions, but that sometimes suffices, like now, as I exude what she breathes along with sweetness gathered from sunlight, and comfort, beyond her ability to notice.

She has been quiet long enough that our Rabbit has been making his way along the shore, closer to us where she dropped young dandelion greens gathered on her long walk today. We watch him eat them, relishing. They disappear quickly, leaf by leaf. She laughs under her breath. He’s so sweet, she has said aloud other times, and wise.

She’s so sweet. My emerging leaves rustle in my own version of laughter. And wise. The message flows along my network, translated into our language, There remains hope for all of us creatures.

Photographs taken by Elizabeth Bowling.