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BENEATH THE CROP
As to his dates in the Western Australian wheatbelt, he was, as he himself says, a young man. Perhaps this land is not willing that such harmony should ever be found among us. The Australian landscape was a living map before our preoccupation. Animals are generated from the mud. I planned it all in my own heart and there came into existence a multitude of forms and beings. These are his ethical works, his works on natural science. He convinces me that the landscape is speaking through the text. He said, 'I inquired into myself, beyond this boundary fence.' These fragments are readily extracted from their contexts. He comes close to the metaphysics of the farm. We find out through reading him that the spiritual aspect of the land rests beneath the crop. We are responsible for everything here and would rearrange it all. And for a short time we lived a different kind of life. He writes, 'it was simply what I was going to say.' |
