Spring is here!

“Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's party'!" – Robin Williams.

Dearest reader,

Something feels different about today. The trees sway wistfully outside my window, and the shrieking kite and persistent squirrel cheeps sound almost melodious on this sunny afternoon.

Spring is here, and I’m feeling partially joyful today, craving mangoes and sunshine and poetry . The morning was spent frantically coating papers to carry along to Cubbon Park later today, to create in-situ cyanotypes of fallen tabebuias and canon ball tree petals. Eeep! I cannot wait.

This newsletter carries with it the scents of springs, alongside poems and essays on trees and healing in nature. Also included is my own extremely personal and vulnerable photo essay for Coonoor&Co, which I invite you to read.

May this season of renewal bring you light, sultry daydreams, and gentle wonder. ✨🌿

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Poetry Corner

Americana 1920 Tropical Forests (Wikimedia Commons)

1. The Gift​ by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
   How does the amaryllis bulb do it,
   store so much life inside its thin brown
   wrapping? How, from such a small
   round package, does such a large
   stem continue to rise? I don’t know
   how it offers such abundance
   from such a small space, but
   whatever grace it is that infuses
   the amaryllis, I want to believe
   it could happen anywhere—
   so that a country or a woman
   or even a minute could be
   a gift wrapped in nothing more
   than its own dry skin, a gift
   that surprises the world as it
   produces extravagant beauty
   day after day, perhaps even
   surprising itself as, seemingly
   from nothing, it begins to bloom.
   

2. It is March​ by Victoria Chang

   In the upper leaves,
   it is already next month.
   I am still writing
   yesterday's poems, waiting for
   clarity to come.
   But yesterday is clotting,
   next month won't come down.
   How do I live in the past
   but write about tomorrow?
   

3. A Dark Thing Inside the Day by Linda Gregg
   So many want to be lifted by song and dancing,
   and this morning it is easy to understand.
   I write in the sound of chirping birds hidden
   in the almond trees, the almonds still green
   and thriving in the foliage. Up the street,
   a man is hammering to make a new house as doves
   continue their cooing forever. Bees humming
   and high above that a brilliant clear sky.
   The roses are blooming and I smell the sweetness.
   Everything desirable is here already in abundance.
   And the sea. The dark thing is hardly visible
   in the leaves, under the sheen. We sleep easily.
   So I bring no sad stories to warn the heart.
   All the flowers are adult this year. The good
   world gives and the white doves praise all of it.
   

4. At the Spring Dawn by Angelina Weld Grimké
   I watched the dawn come,
   Watched the spring dawn come.
   And the red sun shouldered his way up
   Through the grey, through the blue,
   Through the lilac mists.
   The quiet of it! The goodness of it!
   And one bird awoke, sang, whirred
   A blur of moving black against the sun,
   Sang again—afar off.
   And I stretched my arms to the redness of the sun,
   Stretched to my finger tips,
   And I laughed.
   Ah! It is good to be alive, good to love,
   At the dawn,
   At the spring dawn.
   

5. After the Winte​r by Claude McKay
   Some day, when trees have shed their leaves
   And against the morning’s white
   The shivering birds beneath the eaves
   Have sheltered for the night,
   We’ll turn our faces southward, love,
   Toward the summer isle
   Where bamboos spire the shafted grove
   And wide-mouthed orchids smile.
   
   And we will seek the quiet hill
   Where towers the cotton tree,
   And leaps the laughing crystal rill,
   And works the droning bee.
   And we will build a cottage there
   Beside an open glade,
   With black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near,
   And ferns that never fade.

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An Ode to Looking Up and Within: A photo essay for Coonoor&Co

“My mind is a wild forest, and I have grown to enjoy walking through its untamed terrain. To embrace the spirit of anti-fragility, where things emerge more resilient in the wake of inevitable chaos. The forests I wander, both in my mind and the world, are far from orderly, yet in their tangled branches and scattered paths, I find a sense of rootedness and freedom. I have grown rather fond of meandering, leaving room for serendipitous encounters.”
– Rohini Kejriwal, An Ode to Looking Up and Within

My photo essay examines the dualities of kinship—closeness and separation, joy and sorrow, love and loss—using the natural phenomenon of crown shyness as a metaphor. Through personal reflections and rituals, I underscore the importance of vulnerability, empathy, and making space for one another with tenderness, celebrating the diversity and authenticity that guide human relationships.

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Links of the Week

A still from My Neighbor Totoro

• Defining the World of My Neighbor Totoro (Animation Obsessive)

• Also, The Ecological Imagination of Hayao Miyazaki (Orion Magazine)

• “Blue Bananas, Why Leaves Change Color, and the Ongoing Mystery of Chlorophyll (The Marginalian)

• Sun Letters, which can only be read while the sun touches your sky. (via Naive Weekly)

• Family Trees (A beautiful interview on Atmos about mother trees and mycelium connections)

• Alex Metcalf’s The Tree Listening Project + this wonderful profile of Alex on Kew Gardens

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Sending this off with a big, tree-branchy hug and a heart full of spring,
Rohini