burnt
the cool rain yesterday filled the air with a halfway autumnal, halfway rank fragrance. the scents of the first rainfail on the dry asphalt mingled with the activated ash and charred soil around me.

i'm thankful that god provided rain and earth and air and fire. i know that the earth will heal itself around us, the people hurt will heal themselves, and we'll all move on until there's another fire.

for our honeymoon, erik and i toured yellowstone and grand teton national parks. in 1988, yellowstone was almost entirely consumed by a gigantic wildfire. i had no idea. when i first read the first ranger station exhibit about the fire, it brought tears to my eyes. trees, animals, and landscapes were killed by the flames. the ash and changing landscape surface affected the bodies of water and the unfathomable geothermal features - geysers, pools, bacterial mats, etc. but the more i read, the more amazing it all became. everyone was okay with this fire. people who were hurt, rangers and naturalists who lost their life's work, everyone just sort of chin up-ed and looked ahead. if there's one thing i learned from the honeymoon (not counting that little thing about checking the rear view mirror before backing up), it's that fire is a pivotal and vital part of the ecosystem. it was actually quite life-changing and beautiful, et al.


mammoth hot springs, yellowstone national park. september, 2003.
fire damage at the terraces.

yellowstone is all about the ecosystems. everything is in balance. everything is constantly changing. for the better. for example, the fire burnt down the massive lodgepole pines, allowing the sunlight to reach the tiny, delicate aspen saplings sprouting up through the charred forest ground. eventually, the lodgepole pines will grow tall again, fed by the fertile aspens, and then another fire will come along. we'll all start over again.

but when i look outside my office and see bulldozed and blasted hillsides once ripened for developement now blackened by last week's fire, i have a hard time seeing that an ecosystem was there in the first place. when i drive through the hardest-hit neighborhoods, i have a hard time seeing that any of the newly homeless or newly neighborless see ecosystems as a priority right now.
we're all ready to move on and rebuild, but i have a sinking feeling that we'll do so at the expense of any semblence of delicate ecological balance still left in the suburbs.