A tall Liquidambar styraciflua -tree towers in our urban backyard.
She is over 100 years old and has witnessed lives of other families before us; she observes humans’ restlessness.
Liquidambar is not an Australian native tree. I am not native either. We are immigrants from faraway lands. We have become friends – she is the older and wiser of us, and my confidant. She listens, and sometimes responds with a hum. She sees far, over the entire neighbourhood.
My friend Liquidambar will still be standing, pushing against the foundations of our house, long after I am gone.
