The rain was falling, but it wasn’t a sad rain. It was a cleansing rain. Birds flitted through the air, singing and ruffling their feathers at the welcome bath. Old trees greeted it with open branches: eucalypts, bark burnt to iron-black by bushfire, already sporting new growth. Fresh bright leaves sprouted into the clean air, from branches cleared for them by the fire. The ground below was already layered with crisp undergrowth, clamouring to fill the emptied spaces between. And below even that were the shoots of baby gums, germinated by flame.