I only grinned
into a smile
after walking nearly four miles
through the forest cemetery.

The trees, now grave markers
glazed, polished,
stood still.
No echoes from 

lost years to come.

They simply stood,
extraordinary in their silence,
offering a history
of drought,
of hard winters,s 

of the wildfire,
of the windstorm.
all inscribed
in blackened stumps,
as if a careful hand
had left them behind
to be read.

The dismay
of burning a batch of cookies,
the charred domes of dough,
may seem a small thing
but in my world,
it’s the same lesson:

attention.
and grace.