Where I Am From

Cottontail and jackrabbits play tag, but only near the evergreen thorn bushes. Where they can dash like a lizard to escape from trouble – land or sky. Before there was a Lancaster prison we used to hunt wild rabbits with greyhound dogs, not for fun but for eating. On the way from the Chow hall sometimes a cottontail rabbit comes out to feed with the sparrows, black birds, pigeons, and ravens near the work center. Cottontail rabbits do not know how I once hunted them down for food and cooked them like fried or barbecue chicken. Rabbit had its own flavor and did not taste like chicken, and the smell from the skillet was a treat. One of the sparrows I feed has one leg, a female, and another sparrow, a male, has no legs and tries to hover in the air like a hummingbird to pick up food. When I didn’t know better and thought that other creatures were for human destruction I shot sparrows with pellets and BB guns. 

First published on The Good Men Project