Emma, by not Jane Austen

by Glynn Roberts, Lymm

I contemplate my autumn garden.

It looks so tranquil in October.

Good heavens!  What's this?  Am I still sober?

Another of the neighbours' cats!

This one could see off twenty rats,

A mud-brown giant, grossly grown.

Its weight could almost be a stone.

Hang on a bit!  What sort of cat

Would have enormous ears like that?

With one ear up and one ear down

It looks more like some furry clown

It thumps the ground with heavy paws,

And can't control its twitching nose.

Next thing I see it graze the lawn

And truth at last begins to dawn.

I curse all cats from settled habit,

But this cat - it's a monster rabbit!

It's Emma from the house next door

Yearning to find an open moor.

She's not a doe who fancies much

Being shut up in a Colditz hutch.

They let her run loose out of pity

And now she chairs the escape committee

She's learned the tunneling trade, it's clear

A chartered burrow engineer

Oi, you! Don't eat my bedding flowers

The planting of them took me hours.

This is my garden in the town,

Not Watership, or some such Down.

And mind the pond, or you'll fall in,

Splash!  Who said rabbits couldn't swim?

Stop, Emma! Don't go through the gate

Where savage dogs could lie in wait.

We've got to find some way to stop her

From being an errant boundary hopper.

Of course it really wouldn't do

To think of pies or rabbit stew.

The Euro court of rabbit rights

Would quickly have us in their sights.

At Brussels, in that court of theirs

They're known to favour Belgian hares

So here's a rather better thought:

We could seek out a British court,

And put our problem to the judge.

His honour surely wouldn't grudge

An ASBO to protect our border

An ant-social bunny order.