veldt

In Oregon’s Willamette Valley, annual bouts of fall fire created veldts, typically 10 to 20 acres in size, of nearly pure camas lily, which have tasty roots that Kalapuya families gathered and stored for winter.

Neither hawks nor doves, they're vultures, viewing every country as part of a vast veldt where they can pick at carcasses of every sort for their own business or political gain.

“Alex is in a cell,” the oldest man said, his voice as flat as the veldt stretching to the horizon.

Marais imagined that eventually the mound would evolve into a being that could move across the veldt – very slowly in its dirt skin – a monster hybrid of soil and soul.

Or is it that we have the luxury right now, because we’re not being chased across the veldt, to sit and contemplate our own emotional state?