{"id":58,"date":"2016-09-07T00:01:47","date_gmt":"2016-09-07T00:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/?p=58"},"modified":"2018-10-16T11:14:36","modified_gmt":"2018-10-16T11:14:36","slug":"thylacine-80-years-of-extinction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/?p=58","title":{"rendered":"Thylacine – by Susan Richardson"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the 80th anniversary of the death in captivity of Benjamin the last known thylacine, poetry communicates some of the mystery of this creature and its story. Here is Thylacine by Susan Richardson, nature poet and co-editor of Zoomorphic<\/a> magazine:<\/p>\n

i was per-<\/p>\n

haps. i am may-<\/p>\n

be.\u00a0Was nearly now, al-<\/p>\n

most then. Ex-<\/span><\/p>\n

tant<\/span>, ex-<\/p>\n

tinct, just visiting<\/span>, dithering<\/p>\n

with existence. Am<\/p>\n

listed as critical. Was<\/p>\n

history. Soon rumoured.<\/p>\n

i am virtually non- un-<\/span> on<\/p>\n

the brink of unique,<\/p>\n

(in)conceivably, (un)feasibly<\/p>\n

a one-, two-<\/span>, none-off.<\/p>\n

Am RIP. Yet just as i re-<\/p>\n

ceive a cairn of commemoration<\/p>\n

i glimpse myself from the cor-<\/p>\n

ner of my eye and<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

it was about ten metres away when I first noticed it. Sun was going down and I was stuffed after walking all day so I was waiting by the stream for Jase to put up the tent and make a fire and whatever the fuck else he does when he says it’s time to camp. Thought it was a dog at first \u2013 it was about the size of Jase’s sister’s Lab, the one that flobs all over you, kind of pale like a Labrador too, but then I saw the stripes, and its body looked weird \u2013 like heaps longer than it should’ve been. I was too freaked to move, just sat there, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even reach in my shorts for my phone. And just when I’m thinking I’m so going to pass out here, it turns round and disappears into the bush. And soon as it’s gone, Jase comes over \u2013 took his fucking time \u2013 and says I’ve got the fire going, Soph. This place is unreal!…Aw, what’s up? You look like you’ve seen a<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

dog-<\/span> wolf-headed,<\/p>\n

zebra-<\/span> tiger-rumped.<\/p>\n

i have bygonned<\/p>\n

my image<\/p>\n

on the rock. They called me<\/p>\n

coorina, loarinna<\/em>,<\/p>\n

chimerical miracle<\/span>.<\/p>\n

i am thresh-<\/span> flesh-<\/p>\n

holding, solid as persecution,<\/p>\n

dwelling in the realm<\/p>\n

of (im)possibility where<\/p>\n

there are fewer eucalypts<\/p>\n

than there ever used to be.<\/p>\n

Was i a clever<\/span> fake? The proof<\/p>\n

is (in)conclusive. My<\/p>\n

marsupial pouch holds<\/p>\n

only fables now \u2013<\/p>\n

the bandicoot i toss<\/p>\n

to see which way it lands,<\/p>\n

stars miraging<\/p>\n

the loss of my before<\/span><\/p>\n

after. Yet as i dis-<\/p>\n

locate my jaw<\/p>\n

with a phantom yawn<\/span> a scream,<\/p>\n

i dream clean pugmarks<\/p>\n

in the mud and<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

mate, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was gone midnight, I’d skulled a few beers and was driving home over the Burrenbidgee. Parked by the bridge and got a pretty good squiz \u2013 it was standing there, ears up, tail out stiff like the tail of a roo \u2013 and then I thought I’d hop out the van and get a bit closer. \u00a0Mate, if I’d only had the three-oh-eight Winchester with me \u2013 guys spend years out in the bush trying to bag one of these bastards. Tried to film it on my phone before it shot through, but it was too shit-dark to see, so I grabbed my torch from the van and hunted round for a while and found what I reckon was a paw print. Soon as I got home, I googled it and, mate, I was<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

right<\/span> wrong<\/span> (un)thinkable,<\/p>\n

(un)imaginable, (barely)<\/p>\n

credible, a twilit inter-<\/p>\n

stitial wish delivered<\/p>\n

by the (un)conscious mind.<\/p>\n

Whistle me up, make me limbo<\/span><\/p>\n

liminal<\/span> (in)visible,<\/p>\n

see what you expect<\/span><\/p>\n

hope<\/span> grope to see. Am<\/p>\n

psychopomp, tulpa,<\/p>\n

(preter)natural personal guide.<\/p>\n

Was a figment<\/p>\n

of my hallucination<\/span>imagination.<\/p>\n

(Not even) quasi-<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

German poetry site Fixpoetry has shared Der Beutelwolf,\u00a0<\/em>Mikael Vogel’s German-language poem<\/a>\u00a0about the thylacine, in honour of the anniversary. The poem comes from\u00a0Dodos auf der Flucht<\/i> (Dodos On The Run), Mikael’s\u00a0book of poetry on extinct and endangered animals, which will come out next spring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the 80th anniversary of the death in captivity of Benjamin the last known thylacine, poetry communicates some of the mystery of this creature and its story. Here is Thylacine by Susan Richardson, nature poet and co-editor of Zoomorphic magazine: i was per- haps. i am may- be.\u00a0Was nearly now, al- most then. Ex- tant, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[16,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-16","category-artist-projects","with-featured-image"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7RX4u-W","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/wild-Thylacine-large-1.jpg?fit=600%2C417&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1193,"href":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions\/1193"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/66"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}