The Presence of the Observer Changes What’s Being Observed

 

I start my walk to the shops.

Few people along this village road.

A toddler, pushed in a stroller,

spies me going past the other way,

cocks her finger at me and gurgles.

She changes me. I fill with smiles,

waggling my hand back at her,

exchanging grins with her mother.

She changes us all, and

changes our interactions.

 

I take the upper path, above

trees and river – almost step

on a flattened cane toad

some driver didn’t miss. Think

of the handsome goanna

sprawled across half the road

the other day, his proud head up.

Luckily no traffic there.

I tooted, swerved and missed.

He took off into the bush.

 

Next day my sleek black hunter

nosed at an open drawer.

I thought he was trying to climb inside

(he likes cubby-holes, that cat)

but later he brought out on to the floor

the upturned white-bellied body

of a small lizard, dead.

I wondered then,

does Nature demand

a life lost for a life saved?

 

I contemplate, too, the woman

who shares her space with wombats.

“They think so differently

about the world,” she says,

finding that charming. “We forget,”

she adds, “That we are animals too.”

I am an event in nature,

like a wombat or goanna.

I am an agent of change,

like introduced cats and toads.

 

 

Written 29/9/09

 

I recently fished this out of my 'Drafts for Reworking' folder to ask the other members of the (offline) LitChix writers' group for their opinions, because it was the only one in that folder I couldn't readily see what to do with: tighten or ditch. They told me it didn't need anything doing; it's charming and interesting as it stands. So after years of hiding it away, I'm at last sharing it here.