We returned to the thrice-burned wood, shoulder of Klickitat once dense green, now spiked with ghost trees. Close to downed trunks ash white and charred black we turned soil, pulled grass, and set in live starts of oceanspray / ironwood and wooly sunflower. Around the new plantings we built flimsy graze-guards of slender limbs, snapped from the desiccated bodies. The October sun was strong and gold. The earth in our fingers was soft and dark. A raven flew over and shared its deep, purred croak. Young firs waited, waist-high, green, patient in grassy fields pierced by their forebearers’ wooden bones. […]