Road Kill
There’s so much wildlife, all the tourists say,
making their way to sanctuaries and parks,
where they may, if they’re lucky, catch a glimpse
of strange marsupials, wombats, potoree,
bandicoots, or sugar gliders, quolls,
or red-necked wallabies and kangaroo.
They’ll see echidna and will marvel at the bill
of the electric-sensing platypus,
or brush-tailed possums clinging to the trees,
or wombats blundering through the remnant bush.
The antics of the devils all delight,
they snarl and growl and tumble in their play,
the tourists think they’ve found a paradise on Earth,
and with reluctance, they all drive away.
But on the roads, there’s quite a different sight,
the smashed and bloodied bodies of the slain,
the dead and dying creatures, struck by cars
or trucks with trailers packed with logs too high.
Don’t swerve for wildlife, traffic pundits say,
or you, yourself, may be the next to die.
The politicians, ever seeking praise,
make policies for wider, faster roads,
to save the motorist a little time
in travelling, or for shopping on the way.
And so the carnage by the cars goes on,
the wildlife hassled, frightened, maimed, or dead,
their ancient crossing places all ignored
unsafe at morning, evening, night or day.
The wedge-tailed eagle, primal scavenger,
slow to take off, as over-loaded plane,
lumbers to flight, thus easily mown down;
the falcons, hawks and ravens, all postpone
to the last moment their attempt to flee,
and so they lose their chance to get away.
And in the night, the owls, caught in the lights
of cars or trucks, their great white faces glimpsed
as ghosts, the barn owl, boobook and the masked,
out on a search for moths, which, like themselves
are splattered on the glass.
Then there’s the devil, found throughout the night,
seeking to scavenge rather than to slay;
unlike the possums and the kangaroos,
which dazzled, face the lights and stay,
the devil turns his back and, if lucky,
lopes away.
But sometimes, in the pouches of the dead
are long-legg’d youngsters, weaned, or clinging fast
to nipples midst the fur, and still alive,
breathing and warm, but never with a chance,
as secondary road kill, they’ll not survive.
The tourists take away their souvenirs,
their photographs of many lovely places,
but on their cars remain the sorry traces
perhaps within an unseen tyre tread,
there’s fur or flesh or feathers, blood or bone,
mementos of the wildlife maimed or dead.
© Mary Kille
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