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 70 [31]

Photo: Andras Berkes-Brandl
under the rim
by J.S. Harry
under the rim, 4000 feet,
going down
towards ranger valley lying low
lost blue as a myth of bushrangers
between green
hard-to-ride-over hills,
a kangaroo went up the
nearest slope, to brush,
away
from us
he stopt
on a rock
posed side on, halfway up,
large, his tail
-fur outlined black –
looking back
at the ute to see
what we
were what had
become of us
objects there
at the feeding
hour amid cattle
stopt towards him looking up
below
on the valley floor
above last night’s
rainfresh green grass, late
mountain summer’s yellow daisyflowers,
green and yellow grasshoppers
rose upwards by wing
flowers moving dreamlike
from their stalks
J.S. Harry (1939-2015) was one of the finest Australian poets of her generation, and one of the most sensitive and perceptive to write about nonhuman animals.