Between the wires,
where current hums without thought,
a paulownia once stood—
too near the careful reach of power.

It fell.

The stump was burned.
Fire entered the heartwood,
left a hollow—
a dark mouth in the earth
breathing smoke
long after the flame was gone.

Years went by.
The place turned rough to look at.
So I planted flowers there—
small colors rising
around the blackened ring.

Farther down the line,
four hundred yards of fence,
fifteen old trees were taken
for the high wires.
Seventy rings in each,
fifty feet of wind and weather.

Cut.
Burned.
And the fire moved downward—
not toward the sky,
but into the hidden places.

Roots thick as old memory
would not give way.
Weeks of digging—
pulley, shovel, pick.
We dug deeper than a man stands,
deeper than guessing.

Three feet down
we found a living thread—
a passion vine
holding its green life
in the dark.

So the soil learned again.
Ash softened into loam.
What looked ruined
became ready once more—
ready for seed,
ready for growing.

— TaeHun Yoon, 3/5/2026