Grga Pitic: "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Nambawan!

The penguins will come out of the sea at dusk.
They will walk up sand to their burrows
like royalty, through cordoned-off troughs.
We, the rabble, vent our impatience at kids
who break the barrier or throw potato flakes
to the very ordinary seagulls.
Well my God we've been patient! And is this it?
Penguins lurch from the tide: simple, ordinary,
like mullet they could be walking on their tails;
they negotiate roped aisles. Now they've gone
into sandhills and arc-darkened tussocks.
They ignore broadcast announcements in six languages,
they ignore illegal photographers.
We do not exist.
Once this was a real gauntlet against pterodactyl,
dingo strikes, the teeth of unclassified predators
and the first spear. Shivering with our knowledge
that impatience is innocence, we return to car heaters.
So we withhold our own perfection
as if we were incapable of every violence.

  Thomas W. Shapcott Apr 4, 2014 8:56 AM