the kids call them
as I poke my head from the tent
ah. wombats.
one of them is ringing the fence
(the batbats, that is)
another waddles to the road
sprints across the packed white dirt,
waddling again on the far grass. remembering
all those I've seen dead on country roads,
I wonder how it learned this. In the darkness it
seems smaller, younger.
after the headlamps have left
I sit by two of them peacefully,
voraciously grazing; I wonder if
the acres of lawns here are all
wombat-maintained; these two
(joined by a third) seem to move rapidly
until I am surrounded by their spiralling
and so sit a while longer until the path
opens again