D: Wallaby and Dogs

Wallaby And Dogs

I was moving water-smooth stones
to shape a dam when the despairing wallaby
crashed by our noses into the water,
the half-Alsatian snapping as she swam
until I called him off. Arriving late
the silly kelpie bitch, made wolf
by the chase, would not be called away,
nipping the spent beast at throat and head
in a pool, until my lucky flung stone
thudded in the dog's haunch and she fled.

Hunched in the icy pond the wallaby,
dripping muzzle just above water,
had nothing left for flight as I came
though her eye rolled in terror.
Perhaps death had brushed its claws
upon her heart and she waited only
for the releasing dark to claim her;
perhaps the agony of that long flight
settled in her bones, her sinews,
and nothing came when her brain urged.

Hours later, I found her by the pool:
heavily she scrabbled on river gravel
to the water, crossed clumsily ashore
and was gone, hopping painfully uphill.
How we drag destruction around with us;
how we carry death in picnic-baskets
with the wine and Camembert; how humanity
moves ponderous through the world
and things perish - these I thought,
and walked away in the cold evening.