Epicormic buds sprout a new crop of leaves. Paper-thin black bark of Persoonia survives the fire, deep red beneath, insulating the living stem inside. Dense clusters of new shoots sprout from titree and boronia stumps. A myriad of wattle seedlings already with phyllodes edge on to the sun above feathery seedling leaves. The soil, open to the rain, shows rivulets from a summer storm.
Gravity always wins, ironing out the earth.
Grain by grain shuffled from ridge to gully. A thousand nameless seedlings spring from the earth. Thin black stems of wattles all dead but living on in burgeoning seedlings, already changing leaves to phyllodes. An even aged cohort start their race to flower and set seed before the next inevitable fire. Ants, deep down, survived to turn the earth as before, burying seeds that may survive the next cycle of fire.