The happy lush green of summer has given way to the brown almost lifeless cover of winter. The Crocodile River is not as full and gushing. Even the vervet monkeys that dart across the road are not as many.
The winter fires have wrecked their havoc on the landscape and there are still smouldering fires on the Patatanek pass. Needless to say, it is cold even with the smoke from the logs.
The Mpumalanga lowveld is not usually this cold. In fact transplanted anywhere from the colder parts of the highveld, you would be forgiven for thinking that it was summer here.
But alas, the blanket of death that covers everything in winter has triumphed. But hang on. Is it death or is it birth? It is both.
If you could, get out of the car and put your ears to the ground. No. Not the tarmac but the lifeless fields or wild areas that serenade the N4 route. At first you will not hear a thing. As you relax and slowly tune in to the world around you, you hear it. Loud and clear.
It is a cacophony of sound as the seeds underneath discuss with excitement the life that awaits once all this dreary winter passes. They look forward to spring. To birth. They are discussing the colours. “I will be a bright yellow and will dart the landscape like a butterfly that is here, there and everywhere,” says one. But he cannot compete with the reds, mauve, violets and whites.
They discuss the brightness of their colours and the lifespan. “I will be around a lot longer than you,” says one of the less colourful plants. Sure. If others can be brighter, why cant it compete on the basis that its dour colour gives it a longer life. The brighter, the more visible to animals.
There are a range of other unique factors they argue on. The irony of it all is that as they dream of what seems like a better life, they are hastening their end. If they could and would, they would just stay there. Underneath the dying landscape lies the seeds of life. But if they do not sprout, life stops. Period
This is the land of biodiversity par excellence. This is the land of the big five. Of diverse fauna and flora. Of ants and elephants, crocodiles and hippos, human beings and baboons.
If only we can listen to the cacophony of sounds and realize that life is at its best when all seems dead or dying. Nature can teach us a lot. We just need to put our ears close to the ground or open our eyes wider.
