Lost Time in the Burn Scar, by Taylor Graham

Lost Time in the Burn Scar

Old fire behaviorist, forester and range

manager – teaching how a forest comes back

from fire. But unlike the land, you

can’t come back. I’m walking below a log deck

of burned-dead conifers. I pulled over to see

what’s happening, two years after fire

that turned the ground to ash under skeleton

trees. Now it’s growing green:

coyote mint and thistle, aster, mules ears,

butterweed, ceanothus – which species? you

could tell me if you were here. You could name

all these grasses, too – my plant app

won’t hazard a guess. And elderberry – already

big as a bush in its first year, flowering.

And pollinators! moths, butterflies, bees.

Tiny grasshoppers. Did I think I was alone

here? so many lives moving so fast,

I almost bumped into a butterfly! Two years.

They’re making up for lost time.

for Hatch

-Taylor Graham