True confessions: I wish I had a bunny.

Though we have a cat and a hamster, I find myself bunniless this Easter, and I wish I had a pet rabbit, again. I’m reminded whenever I see a live rabbit, that my cages sit empty, waiting for a new occupant. My daughters talked me out of taking in the rabbit I considered adopting before Christmas. Now spring and Easter bring back my pangs of “I want”. However that turns out, this poem shows, we can always pretend. Happy Easter!

Meeting the Easter Bunny

by Rowena Bennett*, 1930

On Easter morn at early dawn
before the cocks were crowing
I met a bob-tail bunny
and I asked where
he was going.

“Tis in the house and
out the house
a-quickly, tipsy-toeing,
Tis round the house
and ’bout the house a-lightly
I am going.”

“But what is that of every hue
you carry in your basket?”
“Tis eggs of gold and
eggs of blue;
I wonder that you ask it.

“Tis chocolate eggs
and bonbon eggs
and eggs of red and gray,
For every child in every house
on bonny Easter day.”

He perked his ears
and winked his eye and twitched his little nose;
He shook his tail
— what tail he had —
and stood up on his toes.

“I must be gone
before the sun;
the east is growing gray.
Tis almost time the church bells chime,”
then, hippety-hopped away.

*Rowena Bennett (aka Rowena Bastin Bennett, 1896- 1981), American playwright, poet, songwriter, is noted for her small cast, one-act plays for children.