In Australia Link | April

On the first morning, Leo Bonetti stood on the veranda of his cane farm in northern Queensland and watched the last of the wet season retreat like a tired animal into the hills. The air was still thick, but the sky had lost its bruised purple weight. For the first time in weeks, the kookaburras laughed without desperation. April, he thought. The month of reprieve.

It was not the same. Leo did not say that this April, the bank had sent a letter with the word foreclosure in small, sharp type. He did not say that the younger farmers had sold up or leased to corporations, that the mill had reduced its hours, that the rains had come late last year and then too hard, that his hands sometimes shook now for no reason at all. april in australia

April in Australia is a month of transitions: the Top End’s humidity cracking open to reveal a brittle, beautiful dry; the southern cities trading their summer freneticism for the amber melancholy of autumn; the outback cooling just enough that a man can walk without feeling his lungs bake. It is the month when things end and other things, quietly, begin. On the first morning, Leo Bonetti stood on

“I know.”

“I have a life here now. We’re going to save the farm.” April, he thought