And from the darkness, curled up on a chair
the girl heard a gunshot from the screen.
The mother deer would never more be seen
and the girl’s youth blew past her like cold air.
She cried and gripped tight her sister’s arm
and gradually her stinging tears would fade,
but innocence had also blown away
with the knowledge that a mother could be harmed.
The girl grew old, and on the screen a blaze
and a koala stumbled down the road
to future with no safe place to go,
and Mother Earth would burn for years and days.
And the girl smelled history in the wind
like the stale ash left behind by Man.
