Editors' Note

Dear Reader,

It is the last day of March. Today, we come to you with Reconciliation, Issue 3 of Eucalyptus Lit. 

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From the waning days of November to this burgeoning promise of March—nearly April—our team has spent many sleepless nights (and consequently sleepy days) poring over submissions of writing and art and the pages of our website. Curating this edition was no easy matter: we truly hope these 21 pieces in Reconciliation serve you well. 

They are not silent. They will speak to you, if you let them. “Every question is a prelude to / self-assessment”, reflects Nweke, Benard Okechukwu. What questions do these works ask of you? What answers do you have to give?

Reconciliation is paradoxical. It is both an invocation and a choice. In a world fraught with division, the concept of reconciliation emerges as both a challenge and an inspiration, calling upon us to confront our differences, acknowledge past wrongs, and look to the possibility of renewal. The forks in the road we all face are difficult ones, but we cannot flee forever. As Neal Mason writes, there is “a choice to be made.”

“Sometimes / yesterday is a flower drying on the windowpane, / sometimes an apple,” Bella Zhou meditates. Reconciliation is not permanent. It shapeshifts like the sadness that precedes it. Accept contradiction as constancy. In the end, it is not the diminishment of pain that we strive towards, but rather the universalization of hope.

Understand the lives that everyone carries with them. It is through reconciliation—of ideas and with others and within ourselves—that we find the path to healing and growth.

So let us handle ourselves with more care, and let us extend the same to others. In other words, let there be gratitude. Judi Mae Huck whimsically eulogizes the creator of Haiku in her poem. There is implicit thanks: Basho’s words—poetry—are “flung far from his homeland, / crash landing” into her life.

Thank you for letting us crash land into yours.

With care,

Iris, Felix, and Jessica

Eucalyptus Lit