'The delicate green shoots grew

in the warm spring sunlight.

A vibrantly beautiful hue

spread across the new pink flowers.

The scent of mown grass and dry earth

bakes in the warmth of the sun.'

The book is snapped shut with a dry, rustling sound. Despite the vivid description, I can't visualise this lively world. All that I can see out of the window is a barren bleakness of rocks, and nothing even suggests that life would have been able to survive out there, once upon a time . . . and as I imagine the beauty and the splendour of nature that once existed I wonder how the extinction of life was ever allowed to happen.