Francesca G. Varela's Blog, page 5

February 4, 2023

Winter Afternoon

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In the folding horizon,
a bare tree,
branches like the stiff undersea coral
I once found on a Hawaiian beach,
dried out, twig-like, sculpted
to hold something bigger than it.

From far away, the crows
look like fruit,
perched there,
small and ruffled,
pressed into themselves,
warm feathers in the wind.

As I’m watching,
a line of geese
flow over,
their wings broad and dark,
surfacing from the clouds
like rocks in a river.

Again, and again,
hundreds of geese,
and the crows begin to rise,
and scatter in different directions,
the sky awakened,
a wave of wings,
black and white,
and going,
and going.

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Published on February 04, 2023 15:43

June 30, 2022

Last Long Blue

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The sky holds on to blue long after sunset, condensed from day soaking into night, a blue like the blush on elderberries, like water as a cloud passes, calm, over a stream. I want to reach out and hold on to it, wrap it around me, jump into it, this, the last long blue of summer.

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Published on June 30, 2022 17:58

May 26, 2022

Poplar

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I look out the window at the poplar, leaves hanging, ancient, like a willow. It blows in the wind like sea grass, liquid, slow-motion, great sweeps that rest, dangling, between winds. Behind the poplar, the sky darkens, a muted gray-purple, holding both sunset and rain, the color of river rocks.

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Published on May 26, 2022 17:53

May 11, 2022

Spring

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It is the time of new green,
of samaras jutting rose-pink from pale, fringed flowers;
it is the time of milky elderflowers
and soft-leaved thimbleberry;
it is the time of salmonberry crowns,
hairy and ready to bud;
it is the time of the robin’s nest beneath the porch,
and the chink of hummingbirds brushing past cedars;
it is the time of unfurling.

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Published on May 11, 2022 19:52

April 15, 2022

Visitor

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You walk past the salmonberries, the newly unfurling maidenhair fern; the false-lily-of-the-valley tucked darkly beneath the Indian plum. You talk over the robin’s song, and step through the bunches of wood sorrel, flattening their stems as you walk. You don’t get excited over a coltsfoot flower rising long-stalked above the understory. You don’t stop with me to kneel at the stream violets, bright green and yellow at a turn in the trail. You complain about the pollen. You see none of the life in front of you. You leave the forest never having been there at all.

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Published on April 15, 2022 20:35

April 9, 2022

Deer Tree

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I stare at the tree with spots on its side, imprinted into the bark as though brushed with paint to mimic the soft, white spots of a deer. I watch this tree rock in the wind before the storm, turn darker under gathering cloud-light, its branches heavy with maple tree flowers hanging down like grapes. I hear the wind against the window, and remember what it was like, and the tears come down like ants against my skin. The tree is all I have to tether myself to the world. I watch it the way I have watched the moon, or the sea, or a mountain cutting up against the sky, all the while crying slow tears, sap raging against the bark.

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Published on April 09, 2022 09:51

April 1, 2022

List of Independent Bookstores in Oregon

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I thought it would be helpful to compile a list of all the independent bookstores in Oregon! As a local author, I find this list really helpful when looking for places to schedule events. Also, it’s fun to visit local bookstores while traveling around the state! I hope this list is helpful for you, too.

Willamette Valley

Portland
Annie Bloom’s Books
Backstory Books & Yarn
Belmont Books
Broadway Books
Daedalus Books
Mother Foucault’s Bookshop
New Renaissance Bookstore
Powell’s Books
Revolutions Bookshop
Rose City Book Pub
Third Eye Books
Two Rivers Bookstore
The Stacks Coffeehouse
Secret Forest Bookstore
Wallace Books

Beaverton
Jan’s Paperbacks

Canby
The Book Nook

Oregon City
White Rabbit Books & Gifts

Newberg
Chapters Books and Coffee

McMinnville
Third Street Books

Salem
Books Read & Books New
Escape Fiction
Reader’s Guide

Corvallis
Grass Roots Bookstore

Eugene
Black Sun Books
J. Michaels Books
Smith Family Bookstore
Tsunami Books
Windows Booksellers

The Gorge

Hood River
Waucoma Bookstore

The Dalles
Klindt’s Booksellers

Hermiston
The Next Chapter Bookstore

Oregon Coast

Astoria
Godfather’s Boks and Espresso
Lucy’s Books

Seaside
Beach Books

Cannon Beach
Cannon Beach Book Company

Manzanita
Cloud & Leaf Bookstore

Lincoln City
Bob’s Beach Books

Newport
Nye Beach Book House

Bandon
WinterRiver Books

Gold Beach
Gold Beach Books

Central Oregon

Bend
Dudley’s Bookshop & Cafe
Roundabout Books & Cafe

Redmond
Herringbone Books

Sunriver
Sunriver Books & Music

Sisters
Paulina Springs Books

Eastern Oregon

Enterprise
The Book Loft

Southern Oregon

Grants Pass
Aquarius Books and Gifts
Oregon Books & Games

Klamath Falls
Canvasback Books
Basin Book Trader

Ashland
Bloomsbury Books

Medford
Village Books

Jacksonville
Rebel Heart Books

Did I miss any? Let me know!




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Published on April 01, 2022 17:22

March 28, 2022

On 23rd Ave.

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A single tree shines green above the concrete, the sun cutting through it from the side, resting on the leaves the way I once saw light filter through alder trees at the river, back when I stood ankle-deep in the catkin-littered creek, and followed it out to the moss, and crawdads, and swirls of slate-gray; back when I plunged into the cold water, wearing my heavy water sandals, and floated weakly on my back, staring up at the cottonwoods, and the osprey perched high in its branches.

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Published on March 28, 2022 20:44

March 19, 2022

Distance

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The seas in the moon that sink down, depths darkened and bitter and gray in the distance, mottled by space, by emptiness, by open sky that presses down and forms bruises, deep impressions that glow unbearable in the distance, can you feel it, distance darkened by empty sky, by the movement of birds, by the dance of the poplar’s angular branches as they scrape the gray air, the pre-rain wind, ancient and humid and stirring and about to brush through, tussled, waving, condensed and then all at once open, from branch to branch, from sky to sky, deep wind from the river swells, from the sea and the distant sun that brushes wild over the earth.

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Published on March 19, 2022 18:18

January 22, 2022

Home

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I want to ask the sky
to guide me to that unfurled shore
in the distance;
I want to ask the sun
to dance with me,
the long-willowed dance
of my ancestors,
the two of us on the slopes of some mountain
below the suns of other worlds;
I want to ask the moon
to be my home,
wherever I am–
great stirrer of oceans, of the water in my own blood–
its great white light somehow warm upon my hands,
sweet as sunlight.

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Published on January 22, 2022 13:38