Return from the Wilderness

“The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring.” -Carl Sandberg

Hello,

I’ve been gone for the past 3 weeks, but I’m so excited to share what I’ve been upto. The mountains absorbed me, or I them. I turned 34 under the stars, made riverside cyanotypes and spoke extensively about my life woes to the pine trees all around. There were artists, strangers and (new) friends I met along the way, who nurtured me in all kinds of wholesome ways, and I thank them for their presence.

I come back to myself having thrived in the silence, or music of nature, away from the drilling construction and rampant tree felling that I seem to be constantly surrounded by. I am sensitive, more so than usual, to light and sounds, so I make disco balls and hang them around the house, I spray some deodar-infused scent in the air, and hope for magic to come rushing back.

All these scents, sights and sounds, which I take for granted in my urban life, are full of earthly delights. My heart is full and melancholic, for the sheer beauty of it all.

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Poems for the homes we find amidst living forests and flowing rivers…

Foret (1905) by Georges Lacombe

1. Praying​ by Mary Oliver
   It doesn’t have to be
   the blue iris, it could be
   weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
   small stones; just
   pay attention, then patch
   
   a few words together and don’t try
   to make them elaborate, this isn’t
   a contest but the doorway
   
   into thanks, and a silence in which
   another voice may speak.
   

2. The Oak-Wood​ by Nikolaus Lenau
   Beneath the holy oaks I wandered
   Through twilight aisles where, soft and mild,
   I heard a brook, which there meandered,
   Keep lisping like a praying child.
   
   With tremors sweet my heart did flutter;
   The forest rustled weird and low,
   As if it fain would something utter
   Which yet I had no right to know;
   
   As if it were about revealing
   The secret of God’s thought and will,
   When suddenly, His nearness feeling,
   It seemed affrightened—and grew still.
   

3. Spellbound by Emily Brontë

   The night is darkening round me,
   The wild winds coldly blow;
   But a tyrant spell has bound me
   And I cannot, cannot go.
   
   The giant trees are bending
   Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
   And the storm is fast descending,
   And yet I cannot go.
   
   Clouds beyond clouds above me,
   Wastes beyond wastes below;
   But nothing dear can move me;
   I will not, cannot go.
   

4. The Good Life by Mark Strand

   You stand at the window.

   There is a glass cloud in the shape of a heart.

   There are the wind’s sighs that are like caves in your speech.

   You are the ghost in the tree outside.

   The street is quiet.

   The weather, like tomorrow, like your life,

   is partially here, partially up in the air.

   There is nothing that you can do.

   The good life gives no warning.

   It weathers the climates of despair

   and appears, on foot, unrecognized, offering nothing,

   and you are there.
   

5. What do the Trees Know by Joyce Sidman
   What do the trees know?
   To bend when all the wild winds blow
   Roots are deep and time is slow
   All we grasp we must let go.
   
   What do the trees know?
   Birds can weather ice and snow.
   Dark gives way to sunlight's glow
   Strength and stillness help us grow.

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Foraging from here and there

• Change Is Gonna Come - YesYou ft. Damon Trueitt

• Rituals: Memories of a Wedding

• Thirteen Ways to Prepare an Egg by Elliott Simpson

• Sheet Mewsic: Moritz von Schwind’s Katzensymphonie (1868)

• Carl Linnaeus’s Flower Clock to measure time in bloom

• Vintage Postcard Paintings by David Opdyke

• Sweet Bitter studies the radicchio in an unfolding collage of its forms (nom)

• Embroidered Books by Candace Hicks

• A Manual of Vegetable Materia Medica by George Sampson Valentine Wills

• Jim Jarmusch made some collages (yay!)

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Currently Reading

-Anupama Raju’s poetry collection, Bitter Gourd
-Solo: My Year of Backpacking and Unpacking by Indrajeet More

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Summers of Childhood Open Call for Poems

To all the poets here, just a little reminder to submit your poem for the Summers of Childhood Open Call. The Alipore Post x Paper Boat invite you to revisit the magic of childhood summers — lazy afternoon naps, juicy mangoes, train journeys, and monsoon rains — and turn those memories into a short 20-lines-or-less poem. 💛

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Also, I’m going to Nantes next month for a poetry residency, and am going to be sending out these love letters into the Internet from there. Going to write to y’all from Monet’s garden after I visit (brb, crying). If anyone has recommendations for people I should meet/places I should visit in France, please write back. :)

Bonne nuit!
Rohini