Heard: “The grass is burning.”
July 8, 2008
Along the highway, as the bottom half of the sky glows and gives way to the cool night, the brown grass burns in lines traveling up the hillside. Small fires, in lines narrower than train rails, let off the musky scent of smoke alongside the cars’ exhaust.
The driver talks about Johannesburg, about the country, of being pushed out by the economy, the crime, the politics, the lack of opportunity for his children in the universities, the worry. The family is thinking of Australia. They are trying to sell the inn; it’s disheartening.
But Hoedspruit, the countryside, will be better. Best to get out of the city (the rat race that is the same as any other city) and go enjoy the country. Yes, within five years the economy will be lost, within forty, the electricity used up. You’ll hear a different perspective though, he says, in the country.
Still, beneath a sky, huge and warm and remarkable, the grass is burning.
