Morning light

Filleti stone entrance wall

Gnarwarre, Victoria

My car moves slowly over rolling dirt roads, flanked by kangaroos and the Barabool hills.
Morning has not yet arrived. Muted twilight passes between grazing cattle, and fog hangs low in the valley.

Stepping out into the predawn, the air is crisp from cloudless night. Nothing moves. The stillness is as if nature herself is holding breath. In that moment time stops… resuming with a magpie’s warble. Heeding it’s warning song, a few lorikeets scatter through nearby pines. Then, silence envelopes the land once more.

In the following moments, day breaks across the hills, vivifying a landscape millions of years old. Immovable. Immense. My insignificance in the face of the sun rising is humbling. I smile as the new day warms my skin.