It needed no pity,
but just a crumb,
something to hop toward.
—Gary Whitehead

Yesterday morning I spotted a rabbit outside my kitchen window. It was dragging its right rear leg, bent at an odd angle–maybe grazed by a car or nipped by a coyote. One more worry.

It reminded me of this poem about a bird missing a leg. Turns out I’m not the only one who frets about a scrub jay with a deformed beak or a mule deer with a big hole in its ear.

I know that rabbit is just fine without my help, but after breakfast I took a wrinkled Newtown pippin from the fridge, left over from last year’s farmers market, and placed it where I had seen the rabbit, in view of my makeshift desk, the kitchen table, and now I’m waiting.