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

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  • Winter Wind

    104 words

    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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  • Cedar Rain

    86 words

    There is a cedar treewho I visit on each hike,and when it rains,the water hangsin its fine-woven branches,as though in a spider web–in small, clear globes,that reflect dark green fog,and licorice fern,and youth-on-age, and my own face, too, and the water running heavy through the creek,and the little brown birds jumping from one branch to…

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  • Cloudside

    49 words

    The clouds cling to the hillside,worn pink-redby the growing storm and the softness of sunset,and behind me the mountain hides beneath the riverin the sharp light of early duskin the clear, swirling air,as the first drops of rain drum and join the water.

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  • Stone Ocean

    63 words

    I feel the moon behind the skyand I hear the ocean,the click of fish, the soft, curling strings of sunlight caught up in the salt-veils,and I feelthe pulse of waves,smoothed by wind, one by one against the shore, as I float on my back, the moon’s oceanthe dark spots,the mares, the old seasmade of stone.

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Learn more about Francesca Varela's novels