Unexpected Visitor

 

Visit of the Kudar

(Racehorse Goanna)

 

Curved against the metal

A prehistoric reptile froze

Leathery neck arced up

and through…

 

His fat lizard body poised

like an arrow

above his long rudder tail

stretched back into the grass…

 

This giant from time long past

permitted only his eyeballs to swivel,

oblivious to my human shock and alarm…

the measured panic of my escape.

 

Drawing on the heat of the iron

Scraping scales and rugged claws

Etched in to drag this mini-dinosaur

Up, over and into the dirt of the garden.

 

Recognising that defining moment

of mutual visibility,

Choices made; paths not followed;

actions not taken –

Universal themes in nature,

Life, war and death.

 

Dawn Veary

November 2013