ONCE, I HAD a view across the valley. Green trees with sparkling leaves were home to squawking cockatoos. Once, red-bellied snakes slithered and bull ants scratched on my grey-and-white surface. Then there were flames. The bushfire left nothing but ash. All the Earth’s stories growl beneath me.

I feel the Woman returning from afar. Her warm tears fall upon the path, bleed through the dirt and burn me deep below. Where has she been all this time? She walks in a row with a dancing Girl on one side and a heavy-footed Man on the other. Her weight is familiar to me. The Girl flutters like a leaf from stone to stone while the Man stomps on the path. She says, ‘I remember when it was an arch of trees. It was like a cathedral. I would sit on The Rock smoking a cigarette, watching the blue fairy-wrens flirt with their plain brown girlfriends. It’s all gone.’