#169: The Garden Edition
Hi,
I’m sending this newsletter from Alipore, from the room where The Alipore Post was born. The passage of time never fails to amaze me. I’ve no idea how it’s almost the end of the year (again), how my niece turned five today, and how it’s going to be seven years of sending out this newsletter next February.
Life is like a garden, which needs tenderness, attention, patience and enough water and sunlight to grow. As my dear Henri Matisse said, “There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”
This rendition of Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss by Studio Joyeeta titled Amar klimt has been giving me life today. So wholesome and nurturing. Felt apt to share it here today.
If you’re someone who enjoys gardening, spending time in nature or just growing as a person, here are ten poems with gardening references that I read over the last month. I highly recommend reading them aloud and savouring the taste of the words on your mouth.
POETRY CORNER
Why You Should Go Outside at 4:40 am in November by Rosemary Royston
Because it is more silent than you can imagine
and above you the moon is a nickel
glinting from the unseen sun,
surrounded by broken crystals.
With the limbs of the bare trees
web-spread like arteries,
under a sky whose shade
has yet to be named
you will find your mouth agape,
eyes lifted as your knees
sink into the fallow garden,
praying, regardless of belief.Dewdrop by Misuzu Kaneko
Let’s not tell anyone.
In the corner of the garden this morning,
a flower shed a tear.
If word of this spreads
to the ears of the bee,
it’ll feel it’s done wrong
and go back to return the nectar.If Words are Seeds by R.H. Swaney
If words are seeds,
let flowers grow
from your mouth,
not weeds.
If heart are gardens,
plant those flowers
in the chest of the ones
who exist around you.Sonnets from the Portuguese 44: Beloved, thou has brought me many flowers by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers
Plucked in the garden, all the summer through
And winter, and it seemed as if they grew
In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers,
So, in the like name of that love of ours,
Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too,
And which on warm and cold days I withdrew
From my heart’s ground. Indeed, those beds and bowers
Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue,
And wait thy weeding; yet here’s eglantine,
Here’s ivy!— take them, as I used to do
Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.
Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true,
And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.godspeak: kingdom come by Lucille Clifton
you, with your point-blank fury
what if I told you
this is all there ever was:
this earth, this garden, this woman
this one precious, perishable kingdom.For My Grandmother by Countee Cullen
This lovely flower fell to seed;
Work gently, sun and rain;
She held it as her dying creed
That she would grow again.Rose Garden, Summer Solstice by Carolyn Miller
Everyone here believes that the roses
are blooming only for them, here where the air
by the formal beds is layered with the scent
of roses. From deep in their flushed and darkening hearts
pour odors of lemons and pepper, apricots, honey,
vanilla and myrrh and musk and semen, apples and quince,
raspberries and wine and ocean, the faint
scent of blood and the fragrance of death and the breath
of the life we are living now, in this place
where the roses are blooming for each of us, alone.In Mother’s Garden by Khaty Xiong
Quietly now a mouse in the garden
that has come to mourn with me
or bite at every insect twisting
in this heat as you lie close & uncaring
in the army of the common housefly.
Let it be known that in death
you harrowed in love & in so doing
traded your ears for blackened ones,
your crown the shade of a new moon.
Let this spell be known as the fortune
of a missing tortoise, brutal limbs
& wounds of multiples. Then, to soften
alongside the watermelon rinds
on this blighted day, your body
presently absent including the mouse
I have startled into darkness. Who will
help me love the castor bean tree now?
Which of these plants will speak for you?
Ignore me while I weave between rows,
swatting at the light I have chased into
the corner of your makeshift shed still full
of your fortune, the abundant secret
of mouse droppings. Meanwhile, stay
dressed—help me be decent. Come away
from dreams, far from streets—quick,
arise in one piece! There is shade.
Even the sun could not spoil you.An Observation by May Sarton
True gardeners cannot bear a glove
Between the sure touch and the tender root,
Must let their hands grow knotted as they move
With a rough sensitivity about
Under the earth, between the rock and shoot,
Never to bruise or wound the hidden fruit.
And so I watched my mother's hands grow scarred,
She who could heal the wounded plant or friend
With the same vulnerable yet rigorous love;
I minded once to see her beauty gnarled,
But now her truth is given me to live,
As I learn for myself we must be hard
To move among the tender with an open hand,
And to stay sensitive up to the end
Pay with some toughness for a gentle world.Lemon Seed by Holly Prado
impossible to pick it up. the oily outer coating catches on the kitchen
counter and begs to grow, even where there’s no soil, the ones I did
manage to plant lived for three years—never trees, but the flat leaves
could be rubbed for odor and pleasure, there are ways to live that have
nothing to do with righteousness, only with the urge to persist. I have
no imagination these days, though I see what’s close by to look at: the
palm in my living room is beginning to scatter its spores. I sweep them
up. they escape to farther corners than I can reach. it occurs to me
that the first step in loving someone else is to love something slippery.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Repurposed barcode scanners produce glitchy electronic beats
Ode to Joy + Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 flash performance in Spain
The Lost Music Video for The Fresh Prince & DJ Jazzy Jeff’s 'A Nightmare On My Street'
Call My Name - Smile (Ft Robyn) (Smile is the side project of Björn Yttling (of Peter Bjorn and John) and Joakim Åhlund (of Teddybears and Caesars))
LINKS OF THE WEEK
I can’t get enough of Javi Aznarez’s poster series of The French Dispatch!
Illustrators in conversation: Adrian Tomine and Wendy MacNaughton ❤️
hākārā, a bilingual journal of creative expression
Learning to Respond Not React - Tara Brach (still learning)
Japanese Philosophies That’ll Help You Spend Money Consciously
In conversation with Tishani Doshi on her latest poetry collection A God at the Door
How to make a map of your mind (via Austin Kleon, who recently made the shift to Substack!)
Ending this newsletter with this powerful reminder by Matt Haig to keep and finding our way back to ourselves. Thank you for consistently reminding me of the strength in vulnerability, Matt.
Take care of yourself, gentle reader. You are not just THIS you.
Hugs,
Rohini
This is so beautiful! I am spending a few of the 84,600 gifts God gave me today to thank you.
Sending a lot of love your way.