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

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  • The Scent of Water

    1–2 minutes

    There is a certain wind that comes off the water; a wind that smells like rain as it’s drying; peach-colored mist on wood or pavement. Something, yes, remarkably dry, wrapped in all the smoothness of water, like roots beneath the earth, bundled and secret. This wind is new in its ancientness, like it may have lain undiscovered for thousands of years,

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  • Dear Sky

    1–2 minutes

    In the sky we find deep water Much like the glazed place on the open ocean; you know your reflection is there but you cannot see it. We call it the wandering place those of us who know what will happen to our questions, how they won’t be answered but swallowed into carpets of light, and

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  • Summer Solstice

    1–2 minutes

    The sun lasts until 10 p.m. These are the good days, intrinsically so, because without knowledge of history, without, even, knowledge of the unfoldings of the seasons, these days would be good. We all crave the sun. We’re all linked to it, and we hold it inside ourselves like fireflies. Like the leaves from the tree,

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  • Without Concrete

    1–2 minutes

    Sometimes I wonder what the world would look like if we lifted up the concrete. I mean, what if we ripped out all the roads, and the parking lots, and the driveways leading up to people’s houses? I keep imagining it, crumbling away like that, but I have a hard time imagining what would be

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Learn more about Francesca Varela's novels