‘The bush flex[ed] its great, porous hide as we moved,
tiny and blissfully unimportant,
between its bristles.’
From ‘Hope Farm‘
by Peggy Frew
I’ve been out and about a lot again recently, on foot and on my bike. The photos in today’s post are from a stroll down south a few weeks ago, on one of the last days of June, before the winter rains began — finally, belatedly — to fall.
On this particular walk, I passed through an area where the bushland borders some new housing developments. Before those houses were built, the land had already been denuded of its natural vegetation: it was farmland for years, and then, when the land was sold off, it grew into bare, grassy paddocks.
And yet.
Despite the impact that humans have had on that land, still, as I walked over it, I swear I got a hint of Peggy Frew’s great, porous hide beneath my feet …
Grassland, especially in autumn, can feel animal. There is a fine-bladed sedge here that bends over and makes me think I’m walking on a giant golden lion.
What a lovely image, Eliza :).