The iron rabbit sits stoically among the azaleas waiting for the next group of squirrels (who apparently can never remember where they buried their acorns and invade my garden digging ridiculous holes in the mulch and soil in their never-ending fruitless attempts to stir their memories and are generally not very intellectual creatures in the first place) or even possibly a new red bird couple or on a particularly exciting day an engaging blue jay couple who assess the area and in short order determine if there is any value to spending more than a few moments in my tree or in a more involved hunt may even stop on the ground for a closer look but are a bit startled when they see the strange iron white observer staring from beneath the azaleas but are greatly relieved when my sentry makes no advance in their direction and wonder to themselves the purpose of a chosen guard who elected by its constituent for a vocation of such great responsibility would sit motionless thus avoiding decisions that could affect the very lives of those whose trust in them was proven by their choice in lieu of other garden statues that might have more righteously served those who now have concluded that putting their trust in a unproven dull iron rabbit who once might have been successful perched on my great-grandfather Samuel’s gravesite on Joseph Street but removed by my grandmother Bertie who feared that someone might abscond with the little iron darling and reassigned him (or her) to the impressive home garden of amazing tulips and multicolored caladiums until Bertie’s passing in 1980 when I requested the worthless but adorable one that now reminds me of Sam who brought his family from Eastern Europe and thus avoided his family’s slaughter there and postponed his own burial instead finding many years of happiness in New Orleans before final pause and rest on Joseph Street and the onetime protection of the iron rabbit who now protects my azaleas from absolutely nothing except possibly the scorn of James Joyce for this pitiful imitation.