Writer
Jude Bridge
Western Australia
GRASS TALES
If I look familiar, it’s probably because you’ve seen me on Facebook or Flickr. Some of you may have caught my spiky green visage in the magazines Spinifex Monthly or World of Dry Grasses, although both have a limited readership. If you don’t recognise me, look closely at the clump of spinifex lounging on the red rock that resembles the skirt of a wedding dress. I’m shaped like a teardrop and hanging down the rock, as though peering underneath. That’s me, on a photo shoot. I’m variously known as stunt grass, celebrity spinifex or set dressing.
Some people think that all spinifex clumps look the same. Fortunately, Harley isn’t one of them. He’s my photographer, famous worldwide in the field of dry vegetation. He found me on a dirt track in the Red Centre, picked me from hundreds of thousands. The other tussocks cheered when I was chosen, spinifex aren’t the jealous type. We laugh and mess around, we’re not a serious kind of dry grass.
Before I knew it, I was travelling not only around Australia, but around the world on photo shoots. I fly as cargo, in a refrigerated box. Sometimes acting is required. I’m not always spinifex, I played the part of a cactus’s friend in Mexico and a small shrub in the broiling Nevada foothills. When I joined waving grass in the African Savannah, a lion urinated on me while Harley was setting up the picture. I burst out laughing, which made the lion laugh. He thought I was there to invade, to multiply, to take over from the native grasses which were his home. I explained that I was just visiting and would keep my seed to myself. We had a good chat. He’d never met an Australian before, and he was my first lion. When he asked if he could eat Harley, I said I’d prefer it if he didn’t, so the lion kept his teeth to himself. Harley snapped away while we were talking and the pictures appeared in National Geographic.
Harley treats me well when I’m not working. I rest in a hydroponic setup in a state-of-the-art greenhouse. The perfect blend of minerals flows through my roots and there are plenty of tomatoes and cucumbers and other types of grass for company. But when we hit the road, that’s when the real fun starts. I’m given a wash and a trim, then Harley places me on the passenger seat of the Jeep and off we go, just the two of us, listening to Lady Gaga on the radio in air-conditioned comfort.
I know that I won’t look like this forever, that one day Harley will want someone younger, greener, spikier, but in this moment, when it’s just us, and ancient red rocks, a warm sun, a promise of rain and spinifex as far as the eye can see, I don’t have to pretend to be happy, you can see it in my face.