LONG SKINNY AND GREEN

I live in an apartment, so I don’t think much of grass. It’s just the green background to my busy life but as soon as I visit the countryside strange thoughts consume my mind.

Grasses have a very simple way of life. They just stand there drawing energy from the Sun enjoying a symbiotic relationship with the natural soil environment which teems with bacteria, fungus and earthworms.

I part the grass to see what’s beneath and lay my fingers upon a dusty heart. Thrusting up through the soil are countless blades that break into waves of greenness that spill across the paddocks. I can clearly hear the whisper of grow, grow, grow.

As autumn draws to an end the bureau says a couple of snow-bearing cold fronts are on the cards. As a natural response to protect its crowns from which grass blades grow the grass will become dormant. This death like state turns the grass a sleep-tinted gold which will last until it becomes green again in spring.