Tags
australian formal poetry, Australian Marsupials, Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Bush Poetry, extinct marsupials, Extinct Tasmanian Tiger, Extinction, poem, poetry, sonnet, Tasmania, Tasmanian tiger, Tasmanian Tiger sightings, Tasmanian Wolf, thylacine, Thylacine sightings, Van Diemen's Land
I’m going away to Van Diemen’s Land
Where marsupials in the bush abide.
There I’ll search for scat, and for tracks in sand,
And I’ll wander the forests far and wide
For a fleeting glimpse of the tiger’s hide.
On the alpine slopes; in the grey-green hills;
To the east and west of the Great Divide,
There his fare he finds in the fresh road kills,
Or the slow or the stricken his belly fills.
But for those who say that the tiger’s dead;
That he hunts no more by the soaks and rills,
There’s a man I know, and this man he said
That the tiger’s death is a pack of lies,
For he’s seen the beast with his own two eyes.
dnobrienpoetry 
So much of your poetry adds to my education.
Well thanks Sandra – back in a couple of weeks.
Love it!
Glad you do bard.
I love the Spenserian sonnet and I love thylacines.
Tom Riley
MADAME DINGO VERSUS MRS. THYLACINE
(A Darwinian Drama)
For the same ecological niche
they competed, uncertain then which
would be top dog at last.
But that’s all in the past:
the placental won out. What a bitch!
(The New Formalist, v. 4 n. 1)
I’ve just spent a week driving around Tasmania and I’ve never seen more rugged or more heavily timbered country. I spoke to a ranger who is a brother of a friend and he has no doubt that the tigers are still out there, mainly in the south west which is totally wild. He knows reliable people who have seen them close up. I think proof of their existence will come to light before too long. There may still be some left on the mainland as well – here’s hoping.