What are the motifs in Drought Year by Judith Wright?

Wilderness is a recurring idea in the poem. While the word wilderness in the past commonly signified danger and death, the word has increasingly come to mean a good place, one absent from the harmful influence of humanity. This is a meaning Wright would be likely to support as an environmentalist. However, "Drought Year" was written in 1953, before wilderness suggested an undeveloped nature. Wright's wilderness is closer to the older brand: dangerous and deadly, one to avoid, not to seek out, or preserve.