Ringtail possums are part of our night life. They depend on the trees to get to their food source. After some beautiful old Bluegums were destroyed, cut down by a horrible noisy roar of chainsaws, and an even noisier greedy mulcher, that made the gracious bluegums into woodchip, the possum in my poem had to use the electric lines to travel and the risk is so much higher. You can see I am very angry about the cutting down of the suburban trees and i love our Australian Ringtails and am afraid we are loosing our animals from the cities. On my walk one morning I found the Ringtail Possum lying electrocuted at the foot of the telegraphic pole lying “like a sacrificial lamb to progress.”
g
going going
the chainsaws stop
with night
possums scurry across the fence
over the ivy into the last blue gum
tiger eyes
in the dark glow
white furry tails
curl flashes of light
they scramble
onto swaying melaleuca to feed
before they are off
for their night journey
on my morning walk
at the foot of a telegraph pole
a young ringtail possum lies
in sacrificial pose
electrocuted
in stiff smelling air
standing alone on the street
i look at the bare spaces in the sky
and rage
against the taking of our treescape
Colleen Keating A Call to Listen 2014 Ginninderra Press
