A rabbit with a clownish, gentle face stares at the sky and sees it as a calm meadow where he could nibble without fear. He is tired of being timid and wants to escape his own cautious body, so he makes one graceful leap toward that imagined heaven. Instead, he lands on a snake and is eaten. The snake swallows more than the rabbit’s body: it takes in the rabbit’s meek, worried dream. Afterward, the snake lies still on a rock, strangely hushed and wilted, as if the rabbit’s quiet yearning has infected it. The ending leaves the snake’s dry body scattered like an unfinished story. The mood is dreamlike, rueful, and a little eerie—sympathy shifts from the hopeful rabbit to the predator left with that unspoken dream.
Rattlesnake Mountain Fable I — Summary
Rounded to a wide eyed clownishness Crowned by the shifting bravado Of his long, brown ears, The rabbit peeked at the sky. To him, the sky seemed an angelic Pasture stripped to phantom tranquility, Where one could nibble thoughtfully. He longed to leave his mild furtiveness And speak to a boldness puzzled by his flesh. With one long circle of despairing grace He flashed into the air, Leaping toward his heaven. But down he crashed against a snake Who ate him with a meditative interest. From that day on the snake was filled With little, meek whispers of concern. The crushed and peaceful rabbit’s dream Cast a groping hush upon his blood. He curled inertly on a rock, In cryptic, wilted savageness. In the end, his dry, grey body Was scattered out upon the rock, Like a story that could not be told.