After the Fire, the Ferns Speak

At dawn the hillside wears a charcoal alphabet, black ribs of pine spelling what the lightning meant. Smoke still lingers in the gullies like old brass, and the creek moves through ash with a silver tongue.

Then rain arrives, patient as a hand on fever, tapping each stone until it remembers coolness. Under the cinders, white threads of mycelium stitch the torn soil back into one breathing cloth.

By June, ferns uncurl like green violin scrolls, deer step softly between the scorched cathedral trunks. A woodpecker drums a new law into morning: what burns is not the whole story of a tree.

At dusk, the mountain exhales resin and wet earth. Fireflies lift from the meadow, tiny embers forgiven. I stand where ruin stood and hear root, rain, wing, all of it rising, all of it beginning again.