The bushfire burnt all
But a small part of a paddock of flowers.
The ashes of those not spared
Seemed, like burnt money, to flake
Ready to be taken by the wind.

The multiplication of worms
Digs at the blackest of the hearth;
And even as the heat of day cracks
And new fires spout at random in the dirt,

The repair of crawling things come, scrabbling sounds:
Scritches and scratches, finding
Tinctures in the earth,
To freedom, and light, and air.

What song can be heard floating from afar?
It is only this native who has re-emerged from a cavern;
His flowerlike skull looks over the fields,
His bare feet stepping among ravages—

Soon joined by one other, and then another,
All traipsing over the debris, a stillness
Met with lingering realisations of hope,
Letting this day pass slowly into night,

As stars and starry eyes emerge,
Among the lost, the fearful and the frayed,
And earth receives these tired bodesome beings
Disposed at last to sleep among the dead.