Issue 25

Dear Readers,

Spring is a transformative season, though not without ferocity. From the barest of trees burst green leaves, silky flowers, vibrant colors to revive winter’s monochrome. The birds return in droves to alight on the branches, and we hear their wings, watch them scavenge and sing in exultation and in mourning for all that has died and been reborn.

We too are nature, governed by the earth’s cyclical rhythms, all its volatile endings and beginnings. We push through air, swallow the sea, and search for home, even when the house is burning and nowhere feels safe. We are the echo of our former selves, and of every being who has lived and died before us. We are aged photographs, stained pages, cracked ruins. Collections of words and ideas, memories and myths. We are transformation itself—an untitled collage. Our bones the sketched lines of branches, our blood singing in our veins.

In this April issue you will find blood, as well as war, hunger, punishment, pain—but also the blooming. The carrying on. The growing and changing to make your own way. The hope and love and ache from which all stories arise, like a fog lifted, like a prophecy, like a flowering tree reaching toward the sky.

Sincerely,
Amy Dupcak