Growing baby dinosaurs are
walking at my feet.
Their striped cocoon-like bodies,
a feathered pod on legs,
with stretched necks and three tiered-feet,
run forward with anticipation of our greeting.
Are they happy to see me,
or do they associate humans with food,
or both, I wonder?
Chick and Chuck, we have called them –
names that point toward their baby status,
and like their stripey markings,
are also something they will soon grow out of.
What a pleasure to watch them
morph from infants to adults –
orphans through a suspected human-abducted egg –
misplaced from their Emu mother
and instead brought to life under a heat lamp.
Sometimes Chick and Chuck roam
freely on the property.
I have found them at the gate,
one step behind Uncle Lou Lou,
who towers over them, s
ometimes guiding and nurturing
and sometimes agitated
by his new-found familiar role.
Watch out for Uncle Lou Lou,
Chick and Chuck!
Don’t get under his feet!
They learn quickly and dart away,
mouths open from the run
across the property,
hiding in my car shadow for shade.
Reunited, shortly,
with their human mother
who takes them back to shelter and water –
I am watching the growth of interconnectedness
between nature and human-assistance –
with the hope, one day,
Chick and Chuck will no longer need
our ever-present guidance.
I am watching the loss of playful innocence
and the assumption of Emu roles and status –
the morphing from fuzzy chick
to long featured beauty –
ready to take a stand,
marking time and place,
in this connection between time-immortal
and time-present day.
After all
It’s a place in history –
for a species,
to continue to survive.
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