NaPoWriMo Safe Under The Big Sagebrush

rabbit hides under the big sagebrush — Do you see the rabbit — center of picture beneath the Big Sagebrush

Safe Beneath the Big Sagebrush

Yesterday we walked the dog at Crescent Bay — his favorite sniffing spot. Guthrie walks with nose to the ground, searching for the messages left by all the other creatures of the area. He’d love to chase the rabbits, but we don’t let him. Today, we saw the rabbit run from where the dog was to hide further away beneath the Big Sagebrush. Scott shot this video:

Antelope Bitterbrush and Big Sagebrush

What I loved today were the blooming antelope bitterbrush among the Big Sagebrush [a species of sagebrush]. The yellow flowers, in tiny buds and little five-petaled yellow flowers are stunning. I chose those two plants as my focus for the poem today, which is a poetic form called a haibun. A haibun starts with a paragraph about a topic and ends with summarizing haiku.

Here you can see a tall bitterbrush with big sagebrush around it.

Scott by the tall antelope bitterbrush with yellow buds and Big Sagebrush around it.

Big Sagebrush growing with antelope bitterbrush. Both species have three-teethed edges at the tip of their leaves.

Flowering antelope bitterbrush of eastern Washington State in April, 2026 — Big Sagebrush growing with antelope bitterbrush. Both species have three-teethed edges at the tip of their leaves.

Resources

Poetry: Haibun

antelope bitterbrush and poem from the blog post; photography and poetry by Sheri Edwards

In spring another delight
fills a bush as tall as a tree—
the small, five-petaled yellow flowers
of the antelope bitterbrush.
The bush is covered with
seemingly millions of them,
and it brightens the landscape
as it blooms among the dusty green
of the Big Sagebrush.

Both shrubs have small leaves
with three-teethed edges at the tips,
but the bitterbrush is a thick, dark green leaf,
while the Big Sagebrush is a grey-green.
Big Sagebrush doesn’t bloom until late summer,
early fall with very small,
yellow tube-shaped flowers.

Both shrubs provide shelter for local creatures,
especially grouse, and bitterbrush provide shelter
and feed to deer, rabbits, and other browsers.

We wander through the pathways
created between the bushes,
the dog running miles more than we walk,
circling beneath the outstretched branches,
sniffing for messages left by other critters.

Today, the bitterbrush shelters a plump rabbit,
frozen beneath it, hiding from the big black dog
always searching, but never finding it.

Paths wind between shrubs;
dog circles desert’s shelter;
so still, rabbit hides.
Sheri Edwards
National Poetry Month
4/13/26
Poetic Form: Haibun