White desk with pink notebook, roses, keyboard, and gold paperclips that Francesca Varela uses to write environmental fiction

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  • Tree Spark

    1–2 minutes

    Tree spark,watching the red-winged blackbirdsail to the east,its warbling song like a raven I once heard in the desert.Tree spark,do you see me? Holding my hands up to you,stringing down your spirit the way rain falls into a river,the way moonlight falls in cupped palmsand is drunklike springwater?

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  • The Long Dance

    1–2 minutes

    Oak treesspread like coral inthe long danceas the crowswatch the edges, as theypaint shadowsover the riverwith their wings,and perch on branches sponged with lichen,calling the sun forthto their feathers.

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  • River Light

    1–2 minutes

    River lighttuned to the sunstretchedlike pieces of spider silk, white over the blue shallow waterand glacial pools,the stones unraveled and caught in the duck’s beak,the heron,the osprey,the scrape of wings,the lines on the water,the intersection of bug and currentand fallen alder leavestumbling the waysnow catches on a hill,pumping along the threadthat ties mountain to sea,sea

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  • The Hunter

    1–2 minutes

    Half-light,pulled close around the ferns,as I wade through dusk swamps of ivy,walking, rushing,swatting lace-webbed kingdomsdrawn between cedar tendrils, down to the base of the creek,the silver rush of mud and fallen leaveswhere the owl watches,her wings two striped archesunfolding silently into the air,an arrow bound for the soil,for the slick white back,wet with dew,of a

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Learn more about Francesca Varela's novels