We all smell the smoke, we all feel the heat. This environmental catastrophe is global | Alexis Wright

Governments of the world need to act. It's time to speak to our planet with kindness before it's too late

All the raspy-voice myna birds have come here, to this old swamp, where the ghost swans now dance the yellow dust song cycles of drought. Around and around the dry swamp they go with their webbed feet stomping up the earth in a cloud of dust, and all the bits and pieces of the past unravelled from parched soil. The Swan Book, by Alexis Wright.

A dense haze of smoke crawled over Melbourne and embraced us for a day in its lonely pilgrimage, inviting us to contemplate its mourning rite, its long prayer.