Tiger, tiger, you didn’t burn bright
in the Launceston Museum when I was a child.
You looked pathetic: your pelt moth-eaten,
your colour dull, head down as if dejected.
You were stuffed and stiff, and you looked it,
although you were supposed to seem
alive and wild. Even my naive young eyes
could tell there was no spark left in you.
You were all gone even then, quite gone
so I was told, the whole lot of you –
three years before I was born. I almost
didn’t just miss you being alive and wild.
I think, though, I'd not have encountered you
even then. You were a shy creature, nocturnal,
secretive, hiding in the bush, quick and slinky
to slide out of sight: a ghost, a shadow.
There were whispers. You weren’t extinct.
You’d been seen. On the mainland too,
even recently, right near where I live now.
The locals nod, and keep their counsel.
************
I thought I saw you once, when I was still
a child back in Tassie – a flicker of movement
and a different colour, at the edge of a field,
fading back into the bush. So swift! Imagined?
You were bright then: not fire but light,
stretched out, loping efficiently, a glimpse
caught through deepening dusk; beautiful …
vanishing into the wilderness as night began.
Written for Fireblossom Friday: Lament for the Thylacine at 'imaginary garden with real toads. The thylacine was widely known as the Tasmanian Tiger, though it is not related to tigers. It was a unique animal, a carnivorous marsupial.
Image: CC BY 2.O Wikimedia Commons
Image: CC BY 2.O Wikimedia Commons
I love how you interpolated Blake's tiger to begin--even though, as you said in your notes, the thylacine wasn't really a tiger at all. I also love the personal nature of this, and the tantalizing nature of almost missing them, both in time and as a sighting. Wonderful.
ReplyDeleteI am a fan of the actor Willem Dafoe, and a few years ago I saw a clip from a movie of his called "The Hunter" in which he takes aim at what seems to be a thylacine. I investigated and became fascinated, and remain so. I gave myself a Christmas present this year--a sweatshirt with a thylacine on it that says "I believe in tigers."
I thought maybe this prompt would appeal to some of our Toads and i am so glad it resonated for you.
The Hunter is a most wonderful movie. Made me so homesick for that countryside. (And I'm a fan of Dafoe too.)
DeleteI love the last two stanzas.
ReplyDeleteLove William Dafoe! There was a episode on Expedition Unknown with Josh Gates - he investigated the claim of the sighting of one of these animals. Had footage, photos - the result was inconclusive - but fascinating.
ReplyDeleteOh.. so much alike we thought mixing with Blake... but what I love is the personal piece... of maybe even having seen one.
ReplyDeleteI love this poem. Love it.
ReplyDeleteI adore the closing stanza. Beautiful!
ReplyDeleteGreat prompt and beautiful poetic lament (plus added personal history) Rosemary. Just hope they are never found if there are any still alive.
ReplyDeleteWhat a very good hope! I'll join you in that.
DeleteI loathe stuffed animals, animal heads in particular, and skins.. living in Africa one can hardly avoid them as a form of interior decoration. Particularly the remains of extinct animals incur a very particular wrath. I feel the emotions expounded in this poem. I pray to the beneficent universe that a few of these creatures remain.
ReplyDeleteI think a museum exhibit is different – in intention at least – from heads and skins displayed in triumph as interior decorations. The latter strike me as disgustingly gruesome. I doubt if the poor thylacine in the museum was killed in order to be displayed; more likely died in captivity after a last-minute attempt to prevent the extinction. I think the exhibitors meant to show us what an amazing creature we had lost. Much too late, of course, and it still managed to look mistreated.
DeletePS In the case of the thylacine, think metal leg-traps rather than guns.
DeleteI am still thinking about all you had to say, today. I just wanted to tell you that your participation was the highlight of the prompt so far, for me.
ReplyDeleteThank you, I'm glad to know that. I was surprised to get so emotional about this topic – and I read your poem and Kim's straight after writing and posting mine, so the feelings were still overwhelming. That depth of self-realisation can only be good, I think. And it was good to know I could express my feelings honestly and have them accepted. Thanks again for the prompt. This whole experience makes me consider delving into my Tassie childhood more often.
DeleteIt's worth noting that when I was a child there were still adults around who had encountered them, although they were increasingly rare, and spoke about them as a background presence in our lives.
DeleteA beautiful anecdotal poem, Rosemary. I love the way it starts with the reference to Blake’s poem and the sadness that runs through it, especially in the descriptions of the thylacine: ‘pathetic’, ‘moth-eaten’, ‘dull’, ‘dejected’, and the alliterated ‘stuffed and stiff’. I also love that it comes alive again in the child’s imagination in the final stanzas.
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful poem!!
ReplyDeleteI love this poem, one of your best. We humans,,,,bah. Murderers. I loved the move the Hunter as well and Willem Dafoe. How sad. How beyond sad.
ReplyDeleteOur children's children will live in a world engulfed by this shadow of extinction. A quiet, still world filled only with the sound of our labored breathing. A fine account of what it was like to be bordered by a vanished wilderness.
ReplyDeleteIf our children's children live at all.
DeleteI loved reading this poem! I read and re-read the last stanza. Simply amazing writing :)
ReplyDeleteJui Positive Cookies
I love the stanzas you added in at the end. Really wonderful poem, Rosemary.
ReplyDeleteOh in those whispers I feel hope. I believe there is so much still with us, but it hides and only reveals itself to those it knows it can trust.
ReplyDeleteI always thought there was a wrongness to stuffed/ mounted animals when I looked at them, a sad sort of pantomime of that spark that you describe. But I loved that bit of hope at the end.
ReplyDeleteNever knew, Tasmania had it's own version of a Tiger. Like so many wildlife, around the world, it presence is only seen in museums. Maybe, i'm naive in thinking, somewhere within Australia, it's living a quiet life, hunting birds and small mammals. Thank you, Rosemarie, for sharing this part of Australia's rich heritage of marsupial.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget, the Dingo is a carnivore, too.
Ah, but the dingo is a different species (not a marsupial but a kind of dog) and although it may be endangered by interbreeding with domestic dogs, is not yet anywhere near extinction.
DeleteIt's nice to think of the thylacine still living somewhere, and perhaps it's not impossible ... but I'm sad to say I very much doubt it.