59. for the timid artists who are retreating, how the world will impinge upon your timidity
for my creative friend, who has left for the mountains, gently wholesome & countrified, like low sheet rainy mist out along a paddock, you have the furious light & shadow of a wilderness in you, subdued & thoughtful in your edge-of-town refuges, where the city culture touches noses with shy native animals, for the timid artists who are retreating to these places, the society will follow you there to impinge upon your timidity, like it sends the wildlife traffickers out to maim, drug & capture, to fill the cramped & barren cages of the world's zoos, like it sends its pollutants upstream & inside the big luscious clouds that have now become the deadly carriers, you have as much chance of retreating as the aborigines of tasmania, you have as much chance of remaining untouched as the great east gippsland rainforests, soon there'll be nowhere left to go, the hopelessly domestic backyards can't contain the complex wildlife, & those crappy nature corridors set up on the edges of freeways, designed to be viewed from car windows, on the pretense that depth might somehow exist behind them, rather than the ruined land of the meat & dairy industry, designed to feed your cravings carefully, whilst confused & frightened animals run backwards & forwards across the bitumen, to do battle with the grilles & headlights, for the last trees that they live in, for the timid artists who are retreating, you are the forefront of the human plague, creeping out over the edges of the ruined territory, i'm staying behind in the city, to fight for what's left of it, the way it stands at present, your art alone has about as much chance of reviving this dying world, as a snowflake has of melting a building |
