Escape Smoking

The Echidna

Would you be an echidna? - I widna'
The echidna is a little shy,
He mostly hangs his head,
And should he hear you passing by,
He'll hurry off to bed

Inside a log,
Or under leaves, he lays
Himself to rest,
Paws outstretched,
Snout between,
He ponders what is best

The meat-ant queens
Who're full of fat
Are soon to fly away:
Should he go round and rip their mound
Or wait another day

Until his snout -
He touches it - is feeling much less sore.
Those worker ants had savaged it
When he first broke down their door

They nipped and nipped,
And tore his flesh,
Until he thought he'd scream
Take that and that,
He heard them cry,
You horrid monotreme!

So feeling sad and fat-deprived
He sank down on his tum,
And wondered why, in at least a year,
He hadn't heard from Mum.

She'd loved him much,
He remembered well,
While he was in her pouch,
But once his spines began to prick,
She'd started crying 'ouch'.

And took him out,
And hid him deep,
In a mix of mulch and bark,
And fed him from her milky glands,
Then left him in the dark.

Don't fret my child,
I won't be long,
He trembled to hear her say:
I'll be back to feed you,
Why, every other day.

And so it proved:
She never failed
To come back with his feed
Her pinkish milk
Oozed down his throat
No matter what his greed!

Then one hot night she waddled off
And he began to dream.
His Mum was gone forever,
Obeying her phylogene.
A silent tear slid down his snout
And hovered on the tip
A terrible pain afflicted him -
Evolution's poor misfit.

He straightened his reptile shoulders,
He raised his mammal's head,
He wiped his bird-like eye
And to himself he said:

I cannot understand it,
This evolution scene,
Or why the lowest mammal
Is labelled "monotreme."

I don't believe it matters,
That I'm both bird and beast,
A special place is set for me
At the great big global feast.

So a monotreme I mean to stay
Despite the jibes and jeers,
I'll lay my eggs and nurse my young
For another million years.

Mary Rose Liverani
Wollongong, Australia
Copyright © 2000 Mary Rose Liverani