First Animal: An Illustrated Ode to Nice Nicobar’s Endangered Species

Daniel’s forest lizard.
| Picture Credit score: Tansy Troy

Shiny inexperienced

whip of color

I, Daniel’s Forest Lizard

don’t need to be ousted

or outcast.

On my leather-based again shell

the universe as soon as rested.

Now, I as dive deep, assume:

On this second, do you wish to

sink,

drown

or swim?

There’s no sting in my tail,

no wrath in my venom:

the one poison is the

catastrophic plan to destroy

my Cat Snake residence.

Delivery

impacts my

delicate sonar

I, King Omura,

whale of turquoise soma.

A Triptych for The Nicobar Megapode

Huge foot

with greater coronary heart

Shyly I scratch sand-mud-grass nest,

laying huge prehistoric eggs-chicks

who fly up

without having

my tutelage

full-feathered, completely evolved-

sensible younger birds:

I’m left within the peace I deeply cherish.

I, historical architect of crone earth,

who might construct us all a future,

totally sustained.

Two Birds Endemic to Nice Nicobar: The Nicobar Serpent Eagle and Nicobar Scops Owl

Tiniest accipiter,

my reclusive mindset deserves

respect.

*

Shining out of the darkened forest,

like a golden-eyed jewel.

Snap snap!

I, crocodylus, eat all insanity, absorb all Patai Takaru,

by no means letting go.

This ancestral homeland of the Shompen

my prehistoric armour defends.

For although you people might benefit from the reward of candid speech,

but I need to train you the facility of Spell.

Slap slap!

tail on mudslime

supple-spined, I journey on

to different worlds.

Nicobar Treeshrew

I’m a Treeshrew

who should communicate to you-

should talk about and lengthy debate

the treachery of this isle.

My extremely elongated forehead

and shrewd distain for digital camera traps,

doesn’t preclude my all-night networking

with racket-tailed drongos.

I invite you to our wild AGM.

Venue: clouds of leaf, of bark.

Our urgent agenda: your candy survival.

Attend.

Dates TBC.

Pseudorca Crassidens: a plea to be true to the False Killer Whale

I’m

not false,

simply an orca-like dolphin whale

on the Purple Checklist: my as soon as sacred presence

now deemed

Historical past.

Until

you decide to my

mammalian offspring,

until you forge quick household bonds

then maybe none of us will ever know

the reality of the phrase tribe.

Tansy Troy is an India-based educationalist, poet, performer, playwright, and maker of chook and animal masks.