ARCOHAB Inc.
Association for Respectful Co-Habitation
Promoting and Practising Kindness and Respect for All Animals and the Natural Environment
Kangaroos – The 100 Days Project: Day 78 [23]
1820

Photo: Ray Mjadwesch
by John Watson
Descending by the massive bullock train
With heavy logs attached behind our cart
Discouraging thereby that fatal forward fall,
We came at last upon the Vale of Clwydd;
And at its narrow Brook or Rivulet
Which name has now become amusingly
Corrupted to the ‘River Lett’, we saw
Our colony of grazing kangaroo.
A Scientist from our party had described
(And Stubbs had painted unconvincingly
In London, far from actually seeing one)
This strange Marsupial. Amazing Grace!
Their mass is concentrated in the lower half
Made more Emphatic by a mighty Tail,
Whose Disproportion makes the little hands
And pointed Head seem greatly delicate.
We could not yet determine how to say
If in repose these Creatures sat or stood;
And many lying down seemed Sickle-like
And very flat. Our Scientist averred
The Kangaroo had knowledge of the future
Being able to delay Gestation till
It was assured the weather yet to come
Would be favourable. We marvelled at their Young
Who in some instances peered from a Purse
Which seemed sewn into the Creature’s velvet side.
Now, speaking of the Marvellous, we exclaimed
In wonder at the sight when, all as one,
Some fifty rose and ran, but did not run!
They leaped prodigiously towards a grove
Almost as if they would outdo the Cow
Who in the proverb leaps over the Moon.
John Watson is a Blue Mountains poet.