Burning off the Deadness

The forest I steward in Northern California

Has not been tended for sixty years at least.

I say at least because that is as far back as I can find records.

And nobody can remember the previous fire

Whose marks I can see on the Old Douglas Firs.

Travel up into the canyon a ways

(The burn marks are not visible from the valley)

and you can see it– there, there, a…