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

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  • And So The Ash Tree Grows

    1–2 minutes

    There is a little ash tree growing at the base of the cedars. I hope it grows tall, and I hope I get to see it tall. Someday, after we move away, there will be other people living here. What will they see? Will they know the trees as I do–wandering between their trunks, eyes

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  • At Sunset

    1–2 minutes

    Please. Don’t forget there are stars. Sometimes I look at the sky, at the sunset red along the treetops, and I feel nothing at all. I’m not really sure where this nothing comes from. All I know is that if I keep staring, just keep watching the sun, then something will stir, and, once again,

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  • To A Cottonwood Tree (Memories of Spring)

    1–2 minutes

    We are related. All life is, and all non-life; every particle of the universe. Your cotton fluff is spring’s silent snowfall. It carries through the wind, pieces of you, arms reaching out. So peaceful it is sacred. Far in the distance the fluff is pouring out against the sunlight, just falling and falling until, all

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  • To Hear The Earth Speak – A Short Story

    3–5 minutes

           They told me I was deaf, but I didn’t believe them. The music was always there. Always strongest at the sunrise, bending the ancient colors of the sky until they were inside me. I knew sound as I saw it. The yellow sap of cedar trees sang directly into me, gave all the

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Learn more about Francesca Varela's novels