light brown wombat

flies buzz all around
loud and big

around the dead brown wombat
they buzz

the light brown wombat died two days ago
hit by a car on the dirt track leading past
our place.

I moved his heavy body from the road
that day
to the base of a hollow scribbly
its hollow, like an above-ground burrow…

forever he will not visit his burrow again
that light brown wombat

forever he will not nibble on bush grass with humble determination
forever he will not waddle along wombat paths pushed through the bush
forever he will not mate to make baby wombats

forever…
no longer a light brown wombatv

now he turns to tree

his life, his body that he fed with grass
now feeds other creatures’ life:
flies, worms, scavengers, ants
his bulk, his muscle
food
transformed
by microscopic creatures
to nutrients for tree

wombat becomes tree

today soft mist-rain forms droplets
on his light brown fur
watery lenses inverting the world around
the world to which all that he is and was
he will return

I came here again with flowers
pink, purple, white

to place around his still body
to encircle his still-wombat form

to acknowledge his unique singular life

blesséd wombat
blesséd tree
blesséd sky
blesséd earth

as he becomes tree
I cry my own rain
in remembrance
of a light brown wombat

—

© Greer Taylor | 17 October 2017