Close up is the brush, now tinder-dry, grasses that quickly grew and quickly died in that spate of late spring rains.

In the middle distance, in a deeper shade, trees and shrubs with roots in rain channels, in sudden creeks and secret springs, still greening as the weather warms.

And then the mountain, coastal sage and chaparral, decades old. If you know how to look you see the swell and ebb, the greys and greens that brighten, then withdraw, a quiet sign of the seasons here on the Southern California coast.