Awaiting Aesop

by John Grey

Jackrabbit’s scat is nothing much but,
under the circumstances, it’s the best that he can do.
But it invokes all kind of activity.
Like the dung-beetle that appears from nowhere.
rolls the crap into a little ball,
gets it moving with the power
of its feathery hind legs.

The pride-bound hare has no appetite for dung,
boasts long ears instead of a hard carapace,
flutters whiskers like a lord at high tea
while his stomach hungers like the living for the dead.
Meanwhile, the ball forces the beetle vertical,
threatens to roll back, crush its body,
but tenacious, unyielding, it nudges the treasure forward,
over pebble, in and out of small ditch,   
until both insect and ball disappear from the jackrabbit’s view
into its underground den..

Dung-beetle no longer of interest, reader and hare
dart off into ribbons of heat, fur like stubble,
chest made slender by the lack of good grasses,
the tough dry chew of the few that survive the oppressiveness,
No succulent carrots. No celery. No apples fallen from a tree.
And all the while, his crap is fueling who knows
how many of these insignificant creatures.
As if being outrun by a tortoise wasn’t enough.
Now, as far as the desert is concerned,
Leporidae has been out-evolved by the dung-beetle.
He rests by a rock, salivating on better times.
His sensitive hearing can almost hear the fable being written.