Flannel Flowers

Blackened banksias bend and twist like old men.
Soot stains our skin and clothes.
Our shoes crunch crippled branches and banksia pods.
No scraps of leaves or life adorn the branches scraping passed our faces.
Above the sky is blue, the sun shines down upon the midnight forest.
Soon our crunching feet stumble upon a pink surprise.
Flannel flowers blush against the black.
Needing fire and heavy rain they only bloom every forty years.
They are new born babes,
Celebrating a brief existence in the charred forest.