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 |   A tentative blog to test the temperature. |
| Landscapes As a young man, way back in the mists of time, I had a dream of a landscape of rounded, rolling green hills, treeless and covered with a short, richly green grass, that went on forever. Small, clear streams wandered through the valleys between the hills and the sky above was always cloudless and blue. Many years later, I found that landscape in the environs of Pietermaritzburg in Natal, the easternmost province of South Africa. Not only were the hills exactly as I had imagined them, they continued for long miles all the way into Zululand, far beyond the horizon. There is a place near Maritzburg that is called the Valley of a Thousand Hills and that is an underestimate. When I had the opportunity to walk those beautiful hills, however, I found that it was not quite as I had imagined. Although verdantly green, the grass was tough and hard, too prickly to sit comfortably upon. The soil between the grassroots was also stony and sharp, conflicting with that first impression of a soft, somnolent landscape. Some time later, my dream of grassy hills was replaced with another. This was of a dry, cold planet where the wind whipped fiercely across the plain, eternally wearing at the land until the planet became a featureless, smooth globe, an endless landscape of leveled and polished rock. There were a few imperfections, however. In just a few places there remained cracks and deeper valleys beyond the reach of the wind and in these were small streams that could support a sparse vegetation. Here, too, I imagined that people could live, scratching at the bottom of the valleys to raise just enough food to ensure survival. Above them, the jet stream howled its way across the crack, knowing that time was on its side - that one day it would erode down to the level of the deepest valley and all would be left unblemished. The planet would become a perfect stone ball-bearing, rolling forever around a pitiless sun. On very rare occasions, however, the wind would drop and would allow the people to climb up to gaze across the empty plain. At these times it would be possible to journey across to visit other small communities in other narrow depressions. The people would have to hurry, knowing that the wind could return at any time. To be caught by that wind on the exposed plain was death. Perhaps this dream explains my apparent obsession with flat landscapes. Word count: 414. |
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