Song Cover Image

The Rabbit at Auction

reinventions_reena
reinventions_reena
The Rabbit at Auction They placed him beneath the painted jungle, a creature of Rousseau’s dream— fur soft as twilight, eyes wide with the hush of leaves, The gavel hovered, voices rose in numbers, but the rabbit found a tongue no brush had given him, He whispered against the velvet air: “These carrots are counterfeit, these leaves are paper shadows, I was promised a feast of truth, not this banquet of lies, ” The crowd laughed, thinking it a trick of imagination, a ventriloquist’s whim, but the rabbit’s protest shivered through the hall like wind through hollow reeds, The bids climbed higher, gold stacked against canvas, yet the rabbit grew restless, ears twitching at the fraud of plenty, When the hammer fell— final, irrevocable— the cage of paint was empty, No pawprints, no fur, only the silence of vanished breath, Collectors searched the frame, the corners, the floor, but Rousseau’s rabbit had slipped into the undergrowth of his own invention, where carrots are real, and leaves

The Rabbit at Auction They placed him beneath the painted jungle, a creature of Rousseau’s dream— fur soft as twilight, eyes wide with the hush of leaves. The gavel hovered, voices rose in numbers, but the rabbit found a tongue no brush had given him. He whispered against the velvet air: “These carrots are counterfeit, these leaves are paper shadows. I was promised a feast of truth, not this banquet of lies.” The crowd laughed, thinking it a trick of imagination, a ventriloquist’s whim, but the rabbit’s protest shivered through the hall like wind through hollow reeds. The bids climbed higher, gold stacked against canvas, yet the rabbit grew restless, ears twitching at the fraud of plenty. When the hammer fell— final, irrevocable— the cage of paint was empty. No pawprints, no fur, only the silence of vanished breath. Collectors searched the frame, the corners, the floor, but Rousseau’s rabbit had slipped into the undergrowth of his own invention, where carrots are real, and leaves sing with dew. And the auction house was left with nothing but a jungle without its witness, a painting haunted by the absence of a voice.