As evidenced by the animals, spring has arrived. Yesterday evening as I was jogging, I spotted a little wild rabbit sitting on the grass verge not five feet away. He was the cousin of my rabbit, a leaner, swifter, wilder version. His stippled brown fur blended him perfectly into the pine needles and debris underfoot. His watchful ovoid eyes and spoon-ears swivelled to apprise himself of my presence as I stopped to look, and he twitched a bit nervously and took a slight hop away, but resumed nibbling grass as if I wasn't even there.
A biker approached and I pointed at the rabbit to share the joy. He was an older, somewhat untidy-looking big man with a stringy gray comb-over and huge glasses. His chest yapped defensively: the head of a dachshund was peering out from where he'd tucked it somehow into his jacket. He stopped and smiled and his dachshund barked frenzily, but the rabbit paid little attention.
"Maybe he is sick, he doesn't run away," the man said in a strong Germanic accent. He began to get off his bike, holding protectively on to the dog. His stone-washed jeans were too short, exposing his socked ankles, and his sneakers were 80's white.
"No, no," I said, alarmed. "I think we'd better leave him alone." The rabbit, suddenly becoming aware of his possible peril, took a few slow hops toward the trees. "I guess he's OK," the man said. We both moved on, in our separate directions, although I looked back a little ways on to be sure he hadn't gone back to meddle with the rabbit. When I jogged by again, the rabbit was gone.
This morning just as I walked into work from my car, two mallards, male and female, soared down, braked for the landing, and waddled toward the door at the same time I did. It was as if the King and Queen of spring had come to pay a court visit. As I approached them they waddled away in the rapid "I'm not frightened enough to fly but I'm getting away from you" sort of way that water birds have, and wandered off into the garden border. I've no idea what they were doing there; there's a swamp nearby, and perhaps they were just taking a tour.
Spring is here; and that is cause for joy.
