#130: For the love of love
Dear reader,
I'm writing to you from my bedroom in Calcutta, in a neighbourhood called Alipore that I call home. I have been reunited with all my favorite ladies today, and am bursting with a feeling that resembles pure love.
For the past few days, I haven't been able to shake off the feeling of love, this all-permeating, all-encompassing feeling that makes you feel warm and whole and all kinds of wonderful. It's wild to think how much love, or the lack of it, can affect us. How unconditional the act of loving is. How simple and complex it is at the same time.
I recently read a line by Leah Raeder that made all kinds of sense to me:
“Part of falling in love with someone is actually falling in love with yourself.”
It is when we start to truly feel comfortable and strong in our own skin, when we can accept who we are despite the perceived flaws and can show loving-kindness to ourselves, that we can start to give and potentially fall in love with another being. Do you agree? How do you love? Feel free to reply to this email and (over)share.
With all this talk of love floating around in my head, I ended up reading many a love poem recently. I’ve shared some of my favorites below, which are so much more than sappy verses:
1. At The Thought of You by Warsan Shire
i gut fruit with my mouth
push tongue into black belly of papaya
peel lychee with teeth
bite into ripe pear
suck on stone of mango
all of this, over the kitchen sink
barefoot
middle of winter
sticky hands pushing hair away from face
moaning into sweet flesh
the whole time
your name flat against the roof of my mouth
2. A Love Song by William Carlos Williams
What have I to say to you
When we shall meet?
Yet—
I lie here thinking of you.
The stain of love
Is upon the world.
Yellow, yellow, yellow,
It eats into the leaves,
Smears with saffron
The horned branches that lean
Heavily
Against a smooth purple sky.
There is no light—
Only a honey-thick stain
That drips from leaf to leaf
And limb to limb
Spoiling the colours
Of the whole world.
I am alone.
The weight of love
Has buoyed me up
Till my head
Knocks against the sky.
See me!
My hair is dripping with nectar—
Starlings carry it
On their black wings.
See, at last
My arms and my hands
Are lying idle.
How can I tell
If I shall ever love you again
As I do now?
3. Vow by Diana Khoi Nguyen
It will be windy for a while until it isn’t. The waves will shoal. A red-legged
cormorant will trace her double along glassy water, forgetting they are hungry.
The sea will play this motif over and over, but there will be no preparing for it
otherwise. Water will quiver in driftwood. Sound preceding absence,
a white dog trailing a smaller one: ghost and noon shadow, two motes
disappearing into surf. And when the low tide comes lapping and clear, the curled
fronds of seaweed will furl and splay, their algal sisters brushing strands
against sands where littleneck clams feed underwater. Light rain will fall
and one cannot help but lean into the uncertainty of the sea. Bow: a knot
of two loops, two loose ends, our bodies on either side of this shore where we
will dip our hands to feel what can’t be seen. Horseshoe crabs whose blue
blood rich in copper will reach for cover, hinged between clouds and
sea. It will never be enough, the bull kelp like a whip coiling in tender hands,
hands who know to take or be taken, but take nothing with them: I will marry you.
I will marry you. So we can owe what we own to every beautiful thing.
4. Abide by Jake Adam York
Forgive me if I forget
with the birdsong and the day’s
last glow folding into the hands
of the trees, forgive me the few
syllables of the autumn crickets,
the year’s last firefly winking
like a penny in the shoulder’s weeds
if I forget the hour, if I forget
the day as the evening star
pours out its whiskey over the gravel
and asphalt I’ve walked
for years alone, if I startle
when you put your hand in mine,
if I wonder how long your light
has taken to reach me here.
5. Scale by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
The heart
is perhaps
more bonsai
than redwood—
constrained
by the size
of its container—
still, it branches,
it grows,
learns to thrive
inside,
no less
remarkable,
no less
evergreen.
6. To Begin With, the Sweet Grass by Mary Oliver (excerpt)
II.
Eat bread and understand comfort.
Drink water, and understand delight.
Visit the garden where the scarlet trumpets
are opening their bodies for the hummingbirds
who are drinking the sweetness, who are
thrillingly gluttonous.
For one thing leads to another.
Soon you will notice how stones shine underfoot.
Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in.
And someone’s face, whom you love, will be as a star
both intimate and ultimate,
and you will be both heart-shaken and respectful.
And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper:
oh, let me, for a while longer, enter the two
beautiful bodies of your lungs.
Links of the Week:
1. Around the Block - David Zinn’s Quirky Chalk Cartoons Spring to Life
2. ‘We Go Forward With a Sanity and a Love’: Nikki Giovanni
3. Arty Breakfast with Manami Sasaki’s Toasts
4. *a brief guide to navigating toomuchery*
6. Free Poetry Audio Books (ermahgerd!)
7. What is a letter? Literary correspondence in the age of instant communications
8. I Could Drink A Case of You, a Joni Mitchell grocery list by Leanne Shapton
This is my newsletter #25: Najiba Yasmin
In the latest edition of This is my newsletter, Najiba Yasmin talks about on coping with the pandemic in a foreign country, the power of empathy in difficult times and the wonderful resources that have helped her reimagine my worldviews and develop empathy over the past few months.
Read it here: https://thisismynewsletter.substack.com/p/this-is-my-newsletter-25-najiba-yasmin
New in the journal:
1. Rong E Ray by Shreya Roy Chowdhury
“The series Rong E Ray is about all the strong women characters featured by Satyajit Ray in his movies. It's about women through their daily lives. We get to see Charulata, Bijoya, Bimala, Durga, Arati and Duley in every woman. We see such strong modern women standing up for themselves everyday. This is to empower women and to have more such poetic, modern, upfront, strong women personalities in this world. Hence this is about all those women who are lost but still strong and beautiful in their own ways.”
-Shreya Roy Chowdhury
See the full series by Shreya here.
2. The Elephants in Yunnan by Vasvi Kejriwal (excerpt)
“Outside, clouds have smashed
head on into the earth, as fast as corona.
Inside, I have slipped on a zipless dress
as fast as corona.
The world is dying slowly here-
at home, where everyone bears the burden
of adjustment. It is the outside
we do not worry about.”
Read the full poem The Elephants in Yunnan and Prisoners by Vasvi here. These two poems have been prompted by the same opening lines. Although the opening lines are the same, the poems are completely different.
3. revolution is a ripple in set patterns by Anannya Uberoi
before shots are charged or headlines flashed, it flies in through attic windows
of essayists breaking into poetry, of poets breaking into prose.
Read two other lovely poems by Anannya here.
4. My tongue is an archipelago by Sufia Khatoon(excerpt)
"My tongue is an archipelago
where a child makes
a kite with grass blades, flies it in the
grueling heat in my mouth and
eats the sun each winter.
If you feel my pulse
and touch the dried salty skin
where the wormholes have emerged –
you can teleport through them to
the moon of turquoise ink
pouring out epiphanies."
Read the full poem by Sufia here.
Going to end today’s newsletter with some parting wisdom from Grant Snider, whom I can always count on for breaking things down:
Here’s hoping your life is dipped in love and meaning!
Love,
Rohini
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