To A Kangaroo Dead By The Highway Poem by Francis Duggan

What brought you here to man made motor way
From your safe and wooded sanctuary for to stray?
And blow flies lay their eggs on you today
For maggots for to eat your flesh away.

I search for brake marks driver did not brake
To spare you your life no effort he did make
He appeared to make no effort to swerve clear of you
No mercy for a harmless kangaroo.

One thud, one groan and he kept racing on
And another kangaroo just dead and gone
And today perhaps he chuckle with delight
As he tell his friends 'I killed a roo last night'.

Your ancestors lived here before the black man came
Centuries before humans set foot on Austral shore
Then white men came and left their trail of shame
And kangaroos they slaughtered by the score.

The race of roo man set out to destroy
Through gun and dog and unfenced motor-way
But race of kangaroo refuse to die
Though numbers keep decreasing by the day.

On your soft gray fur the blow flies their eggs lay
And you've gone the way that many roos have gone before
But you've got your descendants in those woods not far away
And the race of roo will live forever more.