The forest never knows
which spark will earn a name.
Most begin as whispers,
a dry branch sighing,
a careless ember
mistaken for warmth.
Then the wind decides
what is worth keeping.
Hillsides surrender
one tree at a time,
until the horizon
learns the color of absence.
When morning returns,
nothing is loud anymore.
The birds trade their songs
for empty sky.
The rivers carry ash
like they are trying
to remember snow.
Strangely,
the fire never stays.
It devours,
it leaves,
and the earth is asked
to explain the ruin
to every season that follows.
People speak of regrowth,
of stubborn green pushing
through blackened soil.
They never mention
how the roots still recognize
the shape of what once stood above them.
Or how, long after the smoke has gone,
the forest still waits
for footsteps
that burned with everything else.