Kangaroos – The 100 Days Project: Day 78 [23]

1820

Photo: Ray Mjadwesch

by John Watson

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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.