White roses.

Just a simple bunch, with long stalks and petite petals. Nothing flash and exorbitant.

As the dawn rays begin to spark life into a barren mall, the gentleman pauses by a metal bollard and sets down his bouquet, leaning it up against the steel, unwittingly baring his hairy lower back.

And, subsequently, his soul.

He waits for a few moments, deep in thought, perhaps in prayer, and he’s on his way.

The floral tribute to victims of the Lindt Café siege has begun, and by dusk this posy of roses will be a dot on a colourful collage that will cover vast tracks of Martin Place’s stone floor.

It will double in size the next day, and by the third day the original forest of flowers will have pressed to the verge of Castlereagh St and cloned itself twice. The lines to lay flowers is for the most, 20 people deep. They keep coming.

Suited lawyers will have laid flowers. Hard and fast equity dealers will have stopped to have their moment. Secretaries will have embraced each other and shared a shoulder and a cry.

All are grieving. All are mourning. In their own individual way, for their own undeclared reasons.

For in the early hours of Tuesday morning, the relative innocence of this hub of frenzied financial activity and wealth merchants was ruthlessly stripped away by a lone wolf terrorist sprouting an evil ideology.

As the city shook off the terror and fear, Martin Place became a shrine for all. A place of pilgrimage for each of the city’s residents to come and drink from the wellspring of peace and harmony and to show solidarity and, that wondrous characteristic of the Harbour City _ defiance at anything that threatens our charming way of life. And our freedom.

“I couldn’t afford to get here but I just told the taxi driver that I had to get to Martin Place and he replied: ‘Get in — I’ll take you’,” one mourner explained.

Florist store Pearsons has been operating for 45 years. Its owners have never seen such fervent buying and wholesale displays of grief.

“We’ve had high-powered lawyers, we’ve had ladies in hijabs, we’ve had a Greek Orthodox priest and we’ve had whole families.’

“People just want to do something. They want to be a part of the community’s healing. They don’t know the people, they don’t know how to grieve in these circumstances, so they just want to do something,’’ owner Barbara Pollak said.

A tribute card sums up the sentiments Barbara is hearing en masse. It’s one of thousands of thoughtful cards that are pinned to the flowers; scrawled messages from complete strangers, some rough and indecipherable, some eloquent in cursive script, each humming with an unexplainable sense of connection to the fallen.

The sense that they are known. That they are ours. Dear Tori. Dear Katrina.

“We always knew how to honour fallen soldiers. They were killed for our sake; they went out on our mission. But how are we to mourn a random man killed in a terrorist attack while sitting in a cafe? How do you mourn a housewife who got on a bus and never returned?’’ the tribute card read, beautifully.

Sydney Siege: Mourning in Martin Place

The reality of such penetrative attacks on the psyche of a city is such: Revenge is sought. Aggrieved people need to hate, to express their anger, to remonstrate. Things often get ugly.

So far, Sydney has marvellously skirted around such responses, showcasing a collective compassion that has proven that love, fundamentally, unquestionably, is at the core of this often brash and indifferent city.

Sometimes, it just takes jolting events, the selfless sacrifice of others, to draw it out and expose it for what it is: real.

It has been an outpouring of compassion that has seemingly exorcised the demons of past racial outbreaks, as the bulk of the city not only rallies around the victims and their families, but secondly, a religious and ethnic community that traditionally feels the backlash when fools strike misguidedly and ruthlessly in the name of Islam.

Ask Muslims what it was like on the streets of Sydney in the days proceeding September 11.

Hate, so far, has hidden its ugly head. Replaced by overt displays of affection to Muslims, and globally-successful social media campaigns such as #illridewithyou that pre-empted the ignorant backlash that never arrived.

Maybe we weren’t so ignorant after all.

A quartet of Muslim women, their heads covered in different coloured and patterned hijabs, board a train from Bankstown on Thursday morning, bound for the CBD. In their arms they carry an array of wreaths and ornate messages of love.

The reception that awaits them is the great unknown.

They become a target. But not as one could expect in a city that could very easily be straining under the tension and fury of what has just gone down; in a city that has racist runs on the board.

As the ladies lay their handmade wreaths and share a moment of quiet contemplation, they are mobbed with hugs and words of affection, acts that bring them to tears. They cry for their lost, they cry for their acceptance.

Tributes pour into the heart of Sydney

Young people grab selfies with them, and take photos of the poignant words that scrawl across their tributes _ “During this difficult time and always, love and peace from your brothers and sisters in humanity’’.

This, is a city that is learning to love, and be loved in return.

Premier Mike Baird is nearby.

He wanders without minders through the floral shrine, reading some of the cards, and shaking the hands of mourners. It’s the fourth day in a row the popular Premier has spent some personal time down Martin Place, a pitching wedge from his plush office.

His unscripted words are a precise summary of the mood of all that surround him.

“I was proud of this city and state before these events, but my heart is beating louder and prouder because of what I’ve seen here,” Mr Baird said.

“All of those flowers are representative of hundreds and hundreds of people representing thousands of people across the state and millions across the country.

>> SIGN OUR CONDOLENCES WALL FOR THE VICTIMS OF MARTIN PLACE

“We are saying to the victims and their families and friends and those still in hospital ‘we are with you, you’re not alone’ and we are saying to the world ‘we will get through this’.”

We will get through this.

Together.