Editors' Note

Dear Reader, 

We are overjoyed to present to you our second issue, Passage. With this issue, we are proud to declare that Eucalyptus Lit is here to stay. It’s only been three months since we published our first issue—and yet in that time, we have all grown, changed, and learned. Passage attempts to capture the forward-moving force of such change.

It is the tail-end of 2023. As this Californian winter settles into a cadence of rain, we are thinking of reinvention. A passage is a journey, a moving through—of a terminal, of a time. A passage is also a group of written sentences. Passages begin and end. Passage begets passage.

“These are the places we migrate to. / These are the places we migrate from,” Pranavi Vedula observes in “Elegy for the Poets.” We may think ourselves not yet ready for change. But we are ready—we are just afraid. “Time flies, but in the direction of our dreams. / It takes memory to kneel in prayer,” Anthony Okpunor writes in “For Love and For Country.” Time is startling, nonlinear. As writers—humans—we grow alongside the world we live in. In difficult times, find hope: the days are soon to lengthen once again, the sun will shine all the more tomorrow. 

Today is the winter solstice: a natural pivot in the seasonal cycle, aligning with our exploration of change in this issue. Just as the Earth tilts towards its next phase, so too do the passages within our pages capture the nuanced transitions and growth we experience in this journey of life. As Christie Cochrell portrays in her subtle, reflective story, there is love and there is loss. These are the days that must happen to you.

“how many poems / are in this pile, on this desk,” Allen Seward asks. How many prose pieces? How many works of art? How much of the world has been lived—is waiting to be told? Come—look. Read. It is here for you. 

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With hope, 

Iris Cai, Felix Chen, and Jessica Wang 

Eucalyptus Lit