out along the tracks, on the tarmac, snagged on barriers and ticket machines. There are still empty spaces, storm-swaying stump bushes and trash flowers ablaze in the gutters. Drive two hours and we can walk a bare beach, trees leaning up the pebble banks behind us and no mark of man, just the satellites 300 miles up watching, never sleeping. Even the driftwood gone, bagged for the logburners in the village behind the hills. There are still secret, unglimpsed places, songs unsung, words unwritten.
