This poem started with seeing the remains of a dead hare in a  sandpit just down the road from where I live.

Requiem

Begin at the end, or near it:
assembled molecules fall apart.
Already your imprint fades.
Evening finds you crouched four-square,
forced flat in an ultimate act.
Bones have been broken,
gobbets of fur ground into gravel,
your trim coat shredded
to tatters of gaping leather.
And yet your form remains,
teeth bared in an unflinching grin,
paws poised to box the earth,
one ear cocked jauntily for your last trump
of engine and wheels.

Yesterday I saw your mate.
She loped easily up the sandy bank
to case the autumn hedge.
This winter will she visit your remains
or skirt them warily, unsettled by
a sense of what you were?
And when in spring
the last of your bleached bones is kicked aside,
the last ball of your fur caught by the wind,
will she still stop mid-lope to sniff for your scent?