The Rabbit Tree

Top image: Paul Gauguin. Untitled (Tahitian landscape) of the artist's book, aus dem Kunstlerbuch Noa Noa Musee du Louvre, Paris.

Bottom image: My collage, The Rabbit Tree, based on Gauguin's painting.
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I was getting tired of the old walls on my blog. Thought I'd slap some bright pink over everything and make a new start. What do y'all think? Is it too much?

I've managed to do a couple of collages since I got out of school for Christmas break. I did this collage, The Rabbit Tree, just before Christmas. I'm still working with Gauguin imagery. Earlier in the month, I had been researching the symbolism of trees. It seemed an apt thing to do with Christmas right around the corner and Cynthia writing about the importance of the Christmas tree in her family.

I didn't know what I wanted to do with my collage until I ran across the mysterious image of the human brain that looks very much like a tree to me. My son's is an illness of the brain, so that image really spoke to me. The cool colors and the starkness of the image mirrored my psyche. When I am stressed or undergoing some dramatic change in my life, I go back to the fundamental question of "Who am I?" That is when I thought about a rabbit.

Once, about two years ago, I asked my husband, Allen, what animal I most reminded him of. He thought for a while and then said, "A rabbit." At first I was indignant: A rabbit? That cute, timid, insignificant, cuddly thing of Easter baskets? Is that how he really thinks of me? I wondered. I said something to him to that effect.

"No, no!" he countered. "That's not how I think of rabbits. Rabbits are quiet, patient, strong creatures who survive underground, in the deep places in the earth. That's where you live, in the deep places of your heart." Needless to say, I thought that was a fantastic answer and further evidence to me that I'd married just the right man.

So, off to do research about the rabbit and the hare! What a fascinating creature in many mythologies. In one Native American culture, for instance, the hare stories are very sacred, the hare representing their Christ. Indeed, when the missionaries came, the indigenous peoples said they didn't need Christ, for they already had hare. The hare was also closely associated, in some cultures, to the moon and to healing, to the stars. So when Spring came, with its thaw, with its rains and its flooding, I wrote a poem to the rabbit. The poem is rough and unfinished, but it encapsulates my thinking during that time.

Looking at the stark image of the brain, reflecting on what my son was going through, I began to think of myself again as that rabbit, living in the dark places of my psyche, gathering food, gathering healing herbs, gathering strength for the days ahead. The rabbit, then, finished off my collage image well.

Here is the poem I wrote about the rabbit:

Moon-Hare
In this wet season
rain
claws your burrow
with its sharp nails.

I look out my window
and see you sniffing
the ground at the edge
of the blue, fallow field.

March-Hare,
Are you flooded out?
Soon, Osiris will gather
himself again. This rain
will stop.
You
will
go
home
again.

Watching you, I wonder, Has
your winter shyness given way
to the rutting madness of your mates?
Or do you prefer to crouch
at the Virgin's feet? I'd give a house-full
of coppers to know myself again. I yearn
for bucks all my own, their rutting ways.

Rough-Footed Lepus,
Osiris' Boat,
sniffing among the dead grasses,
once a year, gods say you lay
your eggs in our secret places.

Your likeness is everywhere
this time of year: Gingham, pink,
or chocolate-brown,
you ride in children's baskets.

Basket-rider, sawdust-filled companion,
sweet-tooth cure, you once fought
monsters, stood between us and the Great
Manitou. But we've forgotten that.

Moon-Hare, Savior.
You sacrificed your immature ways
for the sake of further development,
and for that you are our Christ.

I watch you, Moon-Hare.
You leap toward the cottonwoods.
I have no fig-tree you can pound
your herbs beneath to make your
magic drink.

I wish I had such a tree.
I would ask you to make a drink for me.