Roots

Posted on September 28, 2020 by Jan Wilberg

We bought a bunny and named him Peter because, well, that’s what people call their bunnies. He lived in a cage in the garage but we always kept the door open so he could see outside and feel the sun on his face. His cage had all of the things one would put in a cage to make a bunny feel cozy and loved, like mounds of bedding and water dripping from a tube that clipped on the side of the cage. We fed him lettuce and scraps from green beans we shucked for dinner. We took him out of his cage to hop in the yard and our little girl would pet him and follow him in his hopping. But then, for a reason I can’t remember, we fed him hamburger one night and it changed everything. He stepped over into a different kind of existence, watchful and always anticipating something more than what he got. His stare became disarming and that was when we stopped calling him a bunny and realized he was a rabbit. And that, once, somewhere, long ago, his kind had been wild and he hadn’t forgotten.

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