“Beneath and around the dead and ruined chaparral rise the most amazingly beautiful flowers. Tulips and wind poppies and flame poppies, whispering bells and suncups. These are flowers that grow only after a burn. Only in a land once dead. You never see them otherwise When my eyes closed I can see those flowers now. They are a promise: that the land will regrow, that even after a disaster life continues, that wonders abound. k”