Rustlings… Booloumba Creek, drought, 2019
I thought you would be longer, lizard-like, reptilian,
As, in scrapes and silences, I heard you rustling;
Lomandra tips waving with your stops and starts.
Clad only in nylon swimmers
I judged where you would appear, and
Quietly placing myself beyond you and the shrinking water
Stood motionless.
Eventually your long-snout poked through the grass
And, surprisingly, it was hairy—not scaled—as you waddled into the sunlight
Hiding your egg-laying secret with a cloak of daggers.
So confident in your protective palisade,
There was no need for you to see me through your tiny eyes.
For near-naked mortals are easily deterred by sharp spines!
Perhaps you sensed me; as I did you, as sacred, not scared?
With your ratcheted coat of one-way arrows reversing was not an option
So you went about your business cautiously,
Descending the sloping bank face-first on stumpy legs,
Your flattened belly hugging the steep rocks like an all-terrain vehicle.
I watched you as your long nose-cone probed,
But you couldn’t reach the first time without you risking toppling in.
So you rotated, awkwardly, and climbed back up the rocky bank, to retry elsewhere.
This time you found a place where your furry black straw could dip its tip
To suck life-giving water from the dwindling creek
In a sight I was blessed to witness,
As you filled yourself with wetness.
Once sated you ascended,
Past normally-submerged platypus burrows
Now a metre above the water;
As the rainforest stream shrinks and disappears.
As your life source dwindles, I wondered…
Where are they now….?
Gaia’s ancient monotremes …?
I wonder — about you, and we…
Where will you go?
Do you have a strategy?
Where did you go last time?
Where will we go?
How long can we survive?
….if our arrows of progress only go one way,
….if we must move to cope with extremes…
As we struggle myopically on the edges,
Surrounded by cliffs…
Can we turn in time? Awkwardly?
And find a new way down?
Or have we reached a dead-end… if the rains don’t come…
