Alone (April)

I return from holiday to news Philip Hunter has died. I look at the words. They are the words. Twelve hours later there’s just the hardness of the words. Cancer. There’s an obituary in the Australian. 58. That’s young. My April mind is a crowd of A. Two early words for Philip are Alone and Altogether. The landscape painter is alone with his landscape. Whether in Vienna or the Wimmera, Fitzroy or Moorabbin, what next between Philip and his landscape? Arguments and dreams about landscape he worked through on every surface, single-mindedly. There was never enough time, alone with form.