Walking a burned forest

The forest two ridges over from where I grew up burned two summers ago. I walked through it on a long weekend in September. I had not been back since the fire.

Burned forest in its second year is a particular kind of place. The fire is gone. The smell is gone. What is left is a slow forensic accounting: this tree fell because the roots burned out; that one is still standing because the wind shifted on the third day; this clearing is wider than it used to be because nothing has filled it in yet.

What is coming back

The understory, mostly. Knee-high green. Aggressive, opportunistic, beautiful in the way that things that are doing exactly what they evolved to do are beautiful.

The canopy will take a long time. I will not see the forest the way I remember it. I am at peace with that, mostly.