By Kevin Delaney
We drove through two hundred kilometres of burnt out forest
The result of the bushfires of last January and February
Such devastation to former lush temperate rainforest
We remember stately mountain gums and messmate stringybark
The profusion of wattle, banksia and tea-tree
So many gullies with abundant displays of ferns
We loved that luxuriant verdant bush that we knew so well.
This forest we found so different, such a contrast
Blackened tree trunks so austere, drear, oppressive
The undergrowth missing, completely destroyed, gone
All was encompassed by a shroud of mordant charcoal
Appearing as a desolate and lifeless wasteland
Our Australian bush is adaptable, regenerated by fire
New growth is appearing, shoots from epicormic buds
Short sprigs of fresh young leaves on small branchlets
These short off-shoots replenish the tree trunks with an exuberant of green
In the gullies scarred tree ferns sprout healthy fronds
Bracken the first of the undergrowth awakening everywhere
Life has a new beginning. Here is resilience. Here is hope.
Now our lives are scarred by a new pestilence –
A novel coronavirus, a pandemic, Covid 19
This appalling plague, evolved in China, envelops the Earth
Shrouding us all in an oppressive blanket of ignorant fears
Our best escape – confining ourselves in isolation.
Here too we can find ova of new life
Neighbours reaching out with encouragement
Being renewed by the simple beauties of nature –
the little bud awakening to become a gorgeous rose
the distant wispy clouds growing to a magnificent sunset
The phone call from a friend who is thinking of you
The loving trusting eyes of a grandchild reaching out from your computer
Life has a new beginning. Here is resilience. Here is hope.