Cowslip took the new arrivals on a tour of his warren.
Stan was impressed by its size. "Wow! These tunnels are so big, you could practically drive a car down 'em!"
"Yes, it took us many years to get them the size we wanted, but the result turned out rather nice," Cowslip said.
As they made their way through the warren, they passed several other rabbits, all as big as Cowslip. "These guys sure are well fed," Heidi whispered to Wendy.
Cowslip brought them to a room full of food. "This is our storeroom," he said. It was filled to the brim with lettuce, carrots, and other vegetables.
Cartman's eyes lit up at the sight of all that food. "Oh, my Frith, this is so kewl! Did you have to steal those from a garden?"
Cowslip chuckled. "They came from a garden, all right, but we didn't need to steal them. The man who owns this farm gives them to us."
"He just gives you food?" Kyle asked. "I've never heard of a human doing that before."
"That's right. Every morning, he walks out to the meadow and scatters the food all over. Then we come out and collect it and bring it back here. The farmer also shoots any elil that come around. Foxes, owls, stoats- you name 'em, he kills 'em!"
"Sounds pretty sweet," said Stan. "I thought all humans were bastards, but maybe not every human is so bad after all."
"And when you don't have to spend every minute fighting for survival, you have time for other things," Cowslip said.
"Like what?" Shelly asked.
"Like creating art!" Cowslip's ears twitched with excitement. "Come on. I'll show you our portrait of El-ahrairah!"
He led them to a different room, where a bunch of stones had been glued to the floor to make a picture.
"What is it?" Stan wanted to know.
Cowslip could barely contain his excitement. "I told you! It's a picture of El-ahrairah stealing the king's lettuce! See how he's got a lettuce in his paws?" He pointed down at the floor.
"Oh, yeah. I see it now." The thing in the picture didn't really look like a rabbit to Stan- more like a deformed groundhog- but he was too polite to say so.
"We not only have artists among us," Cowslip said, "but poets as well. Our best poet is a rabbit named Silverweed. He's actually about to give a recitation right now. You can listen to him."
Cowslip took the friends to a big cavern in the center of the warren, where many rabbits were gathered. A young rabbit stepped into the middle of the floor.
"Silence, everyone! This is my latest poem!" he said. Silverweed had a wild, desperate air and his ears twitched continually.
This was the poem:
"Oh, shining wire!
I see you lurking there on the periphery of my vision.
But when I try to look at you, you scurry away.
Are you shy, shining wire?
Why only when I ignore you,
Do you return to the center of my eye?
Oh, shining wire,
It's all right, you are forgiven."
There was tremendous applause from the crowd. Kyle looked over at Stan and saw tears standing in his eyes. "That's so deep," Stan murmured.
"Dude, it didn't even rhyme!" Kyle said.
Butters found himself standing next to a rabbit named Strawberry. "Are all of Silverweed's poems like that?"
"Pretty much," said Strawberry. "It gets a little old after a while." He was the only one of the warren rabbits who did not seem impressed by Silverweed's poetry.
"What does it mean?" Butters pressed. "What is a shining wire?"
But Strawberry would not answer. Instead, he just turned and hopped away from Butters.