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

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  • Between Waves

    1–2 minutes

    The cloud sea. Two crows bow to the pink edges. They perch on top of the Douglas firs, where the sun unfolds, seeping through as though salt from the sea. And the clouds move steadily–sloped mountainsides, saturated grey-blue: storms, far hills, still moments between waves.

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  • Jupiter and Saturn

    1–2 minutes

    We chased the sun, its red hulked glow dipping into the mountains,the river running high, and overcast,spanning out at the place where the hills drift apart, and we caught the sun, up on the dark curve of a hill, over a field grown feral with winter stalks of queen-anne’s-lace, just as the clouds burned a

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  • Storm

    1–2 minutes

    There you are,the feathered edge of the cedar, black and purplein this bloom of dark water. Together we hearthe rush of far-off wind,the trembling leaves,the gathered rain,flowing in small canyonson the bark,and with each gust I worry you might slip over my head that the flow of water might loosen your roots,and there is nothing

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  • Winter Wind

    1–2 minutes

    I walk through the foreston a drifting afternoon, and the near-solstice lightcuts through the ferns, painting them gold, painting the air silver,and I stop to listen to the single warble of a hummingbird,and to breathethe sun-touched air, when all at once the trees sway,the tilting dance, the pre-wind brush back,before the gust rolls through,and I

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Learn more about Francesca Varela's novels