Huddling close in the wide-eyed wood,
Shivering and sniffing; each lonely, stood
Rabbit and Hedgehog,
Lamenting Megiddo, and all that was good.
Paths all around them, ways without ends!
Yet they conquered the hills, navigated the bends!
Twitchy and Spiky;
Though never as one, they journeyed as friends.
Spring turned to summer; soon restless they grew,
Time came to discover the green and the new;
Fie Nature! Fie Nurture!
Solo, by Solomon’s grace, each one flew!
But Nurture entraps, and Nature is cruel;
The Day, growing old and the Night, growing full,
See Rabbit and Hedgehog
Grounded; each tangled in weeds she can’t pull.
Megiddo! It calls, it ravels, it binds,
Be ye Rabbit or Hedgehog,
It seeks and it finds.
It catches the limbs; it imprisons the minds.
Then Rabbit departed. The one that was left
Alone in Megiddo, vulnerable, bereft,
Was Hedgehog.
Curled into her pain, she waited and wept.
Π