Rabbit Ears

by Charles Goodrich

Photo by Rick Hafele

Rabbit Ears

         Finley Wildlife Refuge

If you’re lucky enough to see one close-up
and back-lit, you’ll notice the skin
on the inside of the Eastern cottontail’s oversized ear
is coursing with rivers
of red veins—
           so much blood
committed to listening
that you, too, will hold still
in hair-trigger awareness, listening
for bobcat, hawk, coyote, owl.

Charles

A Senior Fellow and former Director of the Spring Creek Project, Charles Goodrich has published four volumes of poetry, one of narrative essays, and he co-edited two volumes of writing at the science-art interface, In the Blast Zone and Forest Under Story. His first novel, Weave Me a Crooked Basket, was published in 2023 by the University of Nevada Press.