Hares

In March or April, between the trees,
                         ears like streamers in the breeze,

striding with their long legs
                         in enigmatic zig-zags,

sparring and boxing as they go,
                        ardent bucks and exhausted does.

They’re creatures of air, spirits of spring, you say,
shadowy bookends to the working day.

But in in a late summer light circus,
                       when shadows move in and out of focus,

from my hide of long grass I notice, unaware that I am there,
                       a large-eared hare

lolling in the meadow, nose twitching
                       whiskers trembling.

With lopsided gait it breaks into a run,
                       burnished fur gleaming in the sun.

Kim M. Russell, 20^th April 2026

On the 20^th day, we’re two thirds of the way through NaPoWriMo and April is going so fast! The optional prompt today starts by reading ‘Black Swan on Water’ by Carl Phillips, which consists of a single sentence, and the three-line stanzas mimic the ‘braids in water’ in the penultimate line. Furthermore, “the way the lines get longer and longer makes the poem as a whole look a bit like the widening wake that a swan leaves as it swims.”

Our challenge is to write a poem that uses an animal that shows up in myths and legends as a metaphor for some aspect of a contemporary person’s life, including one spoken phrase.

I’ve written several poems about hares before – I love to spot them when I’m out and about – so I took a few lines from a couple of them and created a new one.