The Presence of the Observer Changes What’s Being Observed

30 Poems in 30 Days: Day 26
Write a poem about a natural event. 

I start my walk to the shops.
Few people along this village road.
A toddler, pushed in a stroller,
spies me going past the other way,
cocks her finger at me and gurgles.
She changes me. I fill with smiles,
waggling my hand back at her,
exchanging grins with her mother.
She changes us all, and
changes our interactions.

I take the upper path, above
trees and river – almost step
on a flattened cane toad
some driver didn’t miss. Think
of the handsome goanna
sprawled across half the road
the other day, his proud head up.
Luckily no traffic there.
I tooted, swerved and missed.
He took off into the bush.

Next day my sleek black hunter
nosed at an open drawer.
I thought he was trying to climb in
(he likes cubby-holes, that cat)
but later he brought out on to the floor
the upturned white-bellied body
of a small lizard, dead.
I wondered then,
does Nature demand
a life lost for a life saved?

I contemplate, too, the woman
who shares her space with wombats.
“They think so differently
about the world,” she says,
finding that charming. “We forget,”
she adds, "That we are animals too.”
I am an event in nature,
like a wombat or goanna.
I am an agent of change,
like introduced cats and toads.