Francesca G. Varela's Blog, page 15

The Ash Grove

When I first found the ash tree, I thought of the song we used to sing in my grade school choir.

Down yonder green valley, where streamlets meander, when twilight is fading, I pensively rove,  or at the bright noontide in solitude wander amid the dark shades of the lonely ash grove. 

This was Oregon ash, Fraxinus latifolia, and it wasn’t far from the creek. Growing right next to it was the seedling of a maple tree, Acer macrophyllum. They were close enough together that I knew one would eventually choke the other of sunlight. Only one could grow tall. Secretly, I hoped it would be the ash tree. You see, my forest is full of maples, and cedars, and even two hemlocks, but there have never been any ash trees.

The ash grove was one of the last songs we sang in my fifth grade choir. Just before middle school. Just before everything changed. Back then I didn’t know the names of plants, or trees, but I came to this same forest and I imagined myself in my own little ash grove. There was the streamlet, and the swaying of trees, neither dark nor light as the shadows danced like water snakes. I played there for hours. I sang to the trees.

It was just a few years ago–long after fifth grade–that I discovered the ash, but I still remembered most of that song. The tune, at least, if not the words. I waited, and waited, but it seemed the maple was winning out. When at last the maple grew so wide as to swallow the ash, I crept down to investigate. The ash tree was still there, hidden deep within the foliage of the young maple. For the moment they were growing together, co-existing, but I knew that the survival of the ash was unlikely.

I thought I’d kept the music, all these years. I looked for it, for the lyrics, so I could remember those lost lines. What I looked up online had very different lyrics; my choir teachers must have changed it. I looked through my old folders and scrapbooks, only to remember that I’d thrown it away many years ago. All I remember now is that it slowed down at the end. The ash grove, the ash grove, repeating like that, and then my memory drifts off. The ash grove, the ash grove–

Tagged: Childhood, Life, Musings, Nature, Outdoors, Prose, Random, Thoughts, Writing

Lost is the Daylight Moon

 

There are times when I see the moon during the day,

a grey-white cloud like the dying blossom of a wild onion,

thin paper, peeled off, fragile and flickering and left behind in the dark autumn wind,

and I stare, feeling that this moon is better suited to my sorrows,

and I ask where I might find my night,

my late-sunset sea that holds on to colors like stars,

and perhaps, too, the feeling of plant-filled quietness thereafter,

and the steady glitterings of evening birds.

I stare up for a while longer

at the sun-bleached valleys,

until the moon falls low,

and we both continue to wander.

Tagged: Environment, Life, Moon, Musings, Nature, photography, Poems, Poetry, Random, Thoughts, Writing

Who We Are

Watch; if we stare at other suns, we won’t see our own,

and if we block our eyes we will see nothing but darkness,

but

look straight into it

into the scalding water,

pierce the steam,

and so dies the life of shadow.

Tagged: Author, Life, Philosophy, photography, Poems, Poetry, Random, Thoughts, Writing

When Hummingbirds Call

When, last, did you hear the song of a hummingbird? It’s a sound that I recognize immediately, and yet, if I try to think of it, right now, in my head, I can’t mimic it exactly. It’s an odd sound. Just the other day I was sitting beneath the maple tree, and I heard it–like metal, like dropped coins falling into a dark pond of water. Without question, without seeing it, I knew it was a hummingbird.

The first time I heard that sound, I was on walk, and I stopped to watch a woodpecker tap into a telephone pole. As I stood there I heard a tight creaking, like wind caught in willow branches, and I looked around for its source. And, there on a blossoming pear tree, rank in its aging sweetness, were more hummingbirds than I’d ever seen. I glanced around at the grass yards, the quiet houses blank with mid-afternoon. Had no one else seen this? The crinkle sound came again, and I realized at last that it was coming from the hummingbirds, with their wings so fast I could not see them. I’ll never forget this, I thought. I’ll never forget that sound.

And so when I hear it I trust in that deep memory–the same unthinking knowledge that has taught me to remember plants, to remember where I’ve seen them, the soft turns in the trail where they grow. It’s the same knowledge that tells me the difference between Jupiter and Venus, and the time of the sun’s shadow.

And so when I heard that sound, that day beneath the maple tree, like a metal coil unfurling in the wind, I was not surprised at all when, a few moments later, a hummingbird flew by, its back a sharp green, like leaves in sunlight.

 

Tagged: Birds, Earth, Earth Day, Environment, Hummingbirds, Life, Lifestyle, Nature, Paganism, Philosophy, photography, Random, Thoughts, Wild, Wilderness, Wildlife, Writing

Return to the River

“Osprey,” I said in my thoughts. “I’d like to see you again. Where are you, Osprey?”

And at that moment the osprey flew off the river-wind and into a maple tree. Without stopping, or even slowing, she tore off a branch and fastened it in her talons.

“For her nest,” I thought. “I’ll see where she lives.” And I followed her white back against the faded blue sky, kept my gaze on her without blinking, until she landed in a faint, beige mound atop a dock post. It’s privately owned, on the other side of the river. I hope they hear her sharp whistle, a sound like broken seashells, and know she is there.

Tagged: Birds, Environment, Life, Nature, Osprey, Pacific Northwest, photography, Prose, Random, River, Spring, Thoughts, Wildlife, Willamette, Writing

The Sun Bird

I sat by the water, among the ducks and the geese. The stream, milky and deep, sifted into the river. I watched the reflections of newly unfurled cottonwood trees get caught in its currents.

As I turned my head, an osprey poured forth from the sun, its wings a mask, patterned and finely painted. Twice her wings lifted, and she glided upriver. She’ll head up north, I thought; to a sandy patch of shrub-alders along the Columbia River. But the osprey turned around, and she sailed back downriver. For some time she crested back and forth like that, searching the water for fish. She dissipated high off somewhere, and I lost sight of her.

The next day I returned to the water. A wood duck floated quietly with the mallards. A belted kingfisher soared over the stream, his wings flicking in and out rather than up and down. I looked toward the sun and there was the osprey, scouring the wind for fish. She’ll likely return throughout the summer, and build her nest in the skeleton of a dead cottonwood; and I will sit by the water, among the ducks and the geese, and I’ll look for her to rise from the sun.

Tagged: Birds, Environment, Life, Nature, Osprey, Prose, Prose-poetry, Random, Spring, Thoughts, Wildlife, Writing

The Robin’s Reflection

The robin flies into the window

because glass does not shine like water;

and there is another bird there,

flat and strange and shimmering.

This is the robin’s land of

damp creeksides and

there’s the nest among the maple towers,

so he sings a song, beautiful and weaved of trills,

and the sun moves along with his notes,

until at long last the other bird has gone.

Tagged: Birds, Environment, Life, Musings, Nature, Poetry, Random, Robins, Spring, Thoughts, Wildlife, Writing

Spring Is An Ever-Moving Process

 

We live among constant change, and we only notice it when we’ve been away.

After two weeks abroad, I return home to find that the first crescents of spring have, well—blossomed. The osoberry, the first bush to sleep and to awake, is draped in full regalia. The creekside is speckled through with waterleaf, one of the only native plants to out-compete ivy. By late summer it will dry out and die, and the invasive groundcover will devour the forest until the hero returns next spring.

The elderberry has almost unfurled, its leaves a pale green, the color of a summer maple leaf when the sun is leaking through it. And the maple, now, in earliest spring, has little purple buds, and the beginnings of what I once thought of as grapes—clusters of flowers that will someday become dry, hairy samaras.

Most birds are here all year, but they are conspicuously quieter in the winter rains. Now the red-bellied robins follow each other over our fence. They sing their low-high trills. They go silent when the crows come in. They sit together at dusk and watch the forest smooth over to gray.

Spring is an ever-moving process. Soon the first salmonberries will be alive. Then the turkey vultures will return, circling high above the driveway at mid-afternoon. We are forever in a current. Forever wind-blown. There are no seasons; just the slow leaking between them.

Tagged: Birds, Environment, Life, Musings, Nature, Pacific Northwest, Philosophy, Plants, Prose, Random, Spring, Thoughts, Wildlife, Writing

My Second Novel

Two weeks from now, on March 15th, my second novel will officially be released. LISTEN focuses on the confluence between music and nature. It’s a story about love: the love between two young people, and the love they

discover for the natual world. Above all, this is a story about reconnecting with the earth.

The protagonist, May, is a college student who dreams of becoming a famous composer. Her coming-of-age journey is a journey in search of individuality, a journey in search of meaning; a journey in search of music, and a journey in search of belonging. LISTEN will enthrall contemplative readers of any age. No need to wait until March 15th; LISTEN is available now for pre-order on Amazon.

A Box Full of Goodness

Guess what arrived in the mail last night? Advance copies of my second novel, Listen! No matter how many books I might publish in my lifestime, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this feeling. My words, my story, my characters, all brought into tangible existence! It finally feels real. I’m a published author? A two-time published author? My greatest childhood ambition has come true? Last night, when I first held my freshly printed book in my hands, I was reminded again that this is real. The publishing process is a long one, but it’s well worth the wait.

 



Listen is now available for pre-order on Amazon! 

Tagged: Author, Books, Culture, Fiction, Life, Listen, Literature, Nature, Novels, Personal, Prose, Publishing, Random, Thoughts, Writing