Koala

 Tribe Animal No. 4 

asleep half the day

where a tree says why,

awake it asks what on earth

am I going to do next?

where is the alarm bell on my body clock?

how snug is my cosy coat?

compact as a football

and just as well

falling without warning from a great height

into a mattress of grass,

the koala

 

Philip Harvey,

 with assistance from Laila Chanzi and Bridie Harvey

Fitzroy Community School, circa 2008

Koala (April)

Wye River memories. A koala parks in a she-oak by the Great Ocean Road bridge, bold outline amidst spindle foliage. In another April koalas settle in treeforks behind the house, eyeing the eucalyptus smorgasbord. A crash through scrub is falling koala, about to bounce back into shape. A koala howls on Paddy’s Path above the sea, protecting its young, unseen and unheard. Koalas siesta. In August we can think we hear them lumbering from treetop to treetop. A koala has a sort of cantering hop on ground, steady but too slow for a fast-moving bushfire. Paddy’s Path is blacked out.