The wildfire licks its fangs
starved for forests

swoops
devours

feasting on the trees
the brush

ingesting everything
once lush

then disappears
as smoking clears.

It seems the beast consumed it all
but life surprises after fall
exerting hungers of its own
to thrive again where it had grown.

So this is not the end
by far:

beneath the breakage
charred and scarred

new blooms and shoots already rise

insects
birds
return

reprise

with evergreens
the weeds and grass

which
after wildfires pass

restore the soil
woods
and ways

regardless how
great flames may raze.