Amanda McLeod, Australia
Lament for the Thylacine
We stand before it in silent reverence,
separated by a hundred years
and a glass case.
It looks worn out—
tatty around the ears,
exhausted by its existence
after death.
Tiny fingers wrap around mine
as we gaze together
at what once was
and will never again be.
We are still for long.
Are they really all gone?
Yes, loves.
Because people killed them?
Yes, loves.
I do not tell them
about how the last one
supposedly died
in a zoo
from exposure,
locked out of its den
one freezing Tasmanian night.
Years later, I stand
in a gallery, surrounded
by photographs taken
by Peter Dombrovskis
in the wildest heart of Tasmania,
and it comes to me.
I see
a striped flicker, a dark eye, a growl,
hidden in that wilderness.
For a moment, it is possible
to believe
that they might still
be out there.
Weightless
When my heart is heavy, I come to the river
to let the water render it weightless, for a while.
The world reflects itself in perfect balance.
I watch waterbirds paddle, leaving concentric circles as they dive.
The ripples reach the bank like passing minutes, smooth and fluid.
I rub a pebble’s smoothness against my coarse hand,
then toss it gently into the current.
There is a splash, a sprinkle of droplets,
each teeming with invisible life.
I flick them back into the river,
watching them fall like rain.
They remind me I too am small but vital—
a single part of an intricate puzzle in which every piece matters.
In the reeds, two frogs sing love songs to each other.
Dragonflies hang, dancing above the water’s surface.
The trees rearrange their branches in the breeze
which is warm and light enough for my heart to float on.
I sit in the grass and let the sun caress my shoulders
until my heart and I are ready to shoulder our burdens again.
Amanda McLeod is an Australian fiction writer, painter, and poet. Her words can be found in Elephants Never, Ghost City Review, Bonnie's Crew, and elsewhere. She is also the assistant editor of Animal Heart Press. When she's not creating, she can be found searching for the quiet wild, or the perfect cup of coffee. Connect with her on Twitter @AmandaMWrites