Lacking a Rosendahl entry for the Letter “X,” I decided to use the term “xeric,” which means “dry” or “arid.” That term brought back recent memories of my trip with Tim to the California coast last August. The poem, “California Flipbook,” draws on these memories and images taken late last summer, when the air was smoky from wild fires was ablaze near Chico, and the natural world was at once fragrant and beautiful but also demonstrably stressed and fragile.

Wishing you blue skies, wherever you go today, LESLIE