The Land Itself | Philip Hodgins

Beyond all arguments there is the land itself,
drying out and cracking at the end of summer
like a vast badly-made ceramic, uneven and powdery,
losing its topsoil and its insect-bodied grass seeds
to the wind’s dusty perfumes, that sense of the land,
then soaking up soil-darkening rains and filling out
with the force of renewal at the savoured winter break.
Sheep and cattle are there with their hard split feet.
They loosen topsoils that will wash away or blow away,
punishing the land for being so old and delicate,
and make walking tracks that run like scars
across the bitten-down paddocks stitched with fences
when the farmers in their cracked and dried-out boots
wait for one good season to make their money green again.
In places where the land has begun to heal itself
there are younger old cuisines, softer footed,
the emu farms and kangaroo farms, both high-fenced
and nurtured by smart restaurants and tax write-offs.
Further out where the colours are all sun-damaged
and the land is sparse and barely held together
you find the future waiting for its many names.
Company personnel in mobile labs are already there,
taking readings and bouncing lumps of jargon off satellites.
A field geologist sits in an air-conditioned caravan.
She sees in front of her a computer screen of numbers
then through a dust –filtered window the land itself.
She looks back and forth. Something here is unrealized.
It might be an asset. It might be an idea.

(1995)