Is that a Coolibah tree beside the abandoned house? Every Australian knows about Coolibah trees because the bush ballad Waltzing Matilda is nigh on our unoffical national anthem but most of us live nowhere near the inland where they grow. Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong, Under the shade of a Coolibah tree, And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled, You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me. Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda, You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me, And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me.
"To muse, to creep, to halt at will, to gaze ... such sweet wayfaring"
William Wordsworth
What I like about places like this (and about photos pf places like this), is that they put man back in his box. They force me to acknowledge how puny mankind is, in comparison with the naural environment. Here in the city, I rarely get that feeling. The built-environment has a grey sense of triumphalism. The one exception that I have found is sitting on the cliffs at Bondi watching massve seas during a storm. But the built environment, in this case, is at my back.
ReplyDeleteI feel something of that too. In my case I feel at home out in the open spaces but also as if I am in an alien place without my usual city props very small and very unable to survive alone out there.
DeleteStrangely enough, it gives me a sense of dying. By that I mean, I feel tossed up into the ether, alone, naked, and without power. Just essence. I get this watching the ocean, in the Red Centre, and walking alone along a creek bed. I can be alone or with others. same feeling. Never in a car, though. Cars power options.
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