For Trey

Remember the rabbits,
The ones that I saved,
The ones that I loved and fed and played-with,
The ones that were meant to die--
That would have died were it not for me?

I miss those rabbits.
They were my childhood.
And as the baby rabbits grew, I grew.
As they turned old, I became older.
And when they left the nest that I protected
I crossed the threshold from innocence to experience.

Remember the cat that crawled along the wall,
The cat you did not want,
The cat that had kittens,
Those kittens I had to protect
Because I was good and you were not?
I played with that cat, and I saved her kittens,
And when the cat died, and her kittens left
To crawl along their own lives,
I crossed the threshold from innocence to experience.  

I did not become a man then, but I stopped being a child.
I existed in that liminal space where the child will decide what he wants,
Will choose how to make his voice heard
Through secret moves
And muted tones.
I decided that I could not watch the rabbits die,
That I could not chase the cat away,
So I did what I could to save them.

I found meaning in the little things that lived in the woods and in the shadows.
I climbed trees and jumped streams to find my way to them.
Because the big things that went to work and drove cars and bought groceries
Tried to tear me from my love and to pin me to emptiness—
An emptiness that was another’s dream,
An emptiness that hurt,
An emptiness that would transform me.

Now I am here, with no rabbit and no cat.
I only have my self and the human flesh that I have chosen to love,
My flesh and the flesh of others,
The flesh of friends and the flesh of intimates,
The flesh I hug, the flesh I kiss, the flesh I feel.
And I cannot do anything but protect that flesh
Because, long ago, I moved a nest to safety,
And, in so doing, crossed the threshold from innocence to experience.