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

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  • All the Waters I Have Seen – Sugarhouse Pond

    1–2 minutes

    This is the gathering place. Down below, a blanket, a fur like the unhealthy coating on a tongue. Amorphous—the emerald of rotting things. No one would dare wade through these waters. From a distance there is nothing beneath. Under the glint of blue-sprawled sky, it is only water. The geese find it clean enough. They

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  • All the Waters I Have Seen – Red Butte Garden

    1–2 minutes

    We are walking in the sun, along the blue-green edges. I stop to hear the grass. Sedges and cattails speak a particular language, rushes another. Grasses are perhaps the most clear, but only when they are tall and seeded with knots of wisp. We listen for some time. We hear a sliding, an endless tunnel,

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  • All the Waters I Have Seen: A Collection

    1–2 minutes

    These prose-poems, narratives, and photographs focus on the various waters I’ve come upon in the last several months. Whether lake or river, at home or traveling, water proved a captivating companion, one that brings to mind sustainability, human experience, and our place among the greater world. Water can serve as the scenic focal point of

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  • Desert Notes

    1–2 minutes

    With each step the rocks are new Pink sunset, blue distance, pale but not brittle Against all my judgement I have the feeling that the rocks are alive We all move in the sun Naked, curled trees; one smooth branch of juniper in a slot canyon Raven on the sandstone gluck-gluck-click I am not alone here

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Learn more about Francesca Varela's novels