I wake and wander riverside
on a crisp winter morning.
Sunshine chases chills
from my bones
while my heart warms
with wonder
that I am welcome here
in what will always be
Aboriginal land.
My history not white-washed
but somehow forgiven.
My love for this place
a gift of grace.

Fiona H Evans has lived for 25 years in the suburb of Bayswater, by the Swan River in Perth. She walks the riverside every day in a place named Birralyn by local Noongar people long before it became Bayswater. Ever changing, ever the same, this place is as beautiful as it was 25 years ago. Probably as beautiful as it was a hundred years ago. Or 45,000 years ago, which is how long we have evidence of Noongar people living here. But of course, they’ve been here longer. This was always their land.