I stopped under a jacaranda yesterday, waiting for the wind to shake the tree and shower me with the blossoms. Lovely ode to summer, Suyin! I read it yesterday and waited to see it on the desktop- what lovely poem art!
That’s so beautiful, Priya!! 💜 A few days after your note, I also found myself under a jacaranda tree here in Porto that had purple blossoms falling all around. It was magical. So happy to hear that you had such a special encounter with a jacaranda tree too. I’m curious as to where you live, if you don’t mind sharing? Thank you for taking the time to appreciate my poem and poem art on your desktop too, it means so much 🥹✨
Wow! Just wow🤯 This reads like a magical fairytale, it honestly left me in awe✨ makes me want to wear lavender dresses, relax and take this summer slow, eating peaches with my eyes closed under a tree, living my fairy dreams🪞 your words never, never fail to transport me and bewitch me 🤍 thank you for such beauty🧚🏻
Thank you sooo much for your lovely words, Nadia!! It fills my heart so much to hear about the world you were transported to through the poem - wearing lavender dresses, eating peaches and living in a fairy dream 🧚♂️☁️ sounds absolutely perfect - I’d love to visit you there 😍 thank you always for your beautiful way of looking at and reflecting back to me the world in my words, it means so much! 🥲💗💗
Thank you so much for reading, and for your lovely words on my poem, Sidney! ✨ It makes me so happy to know you liked the poem, and I'm looking forward to reading your writing too 🤍
Wow I love this piece, Suyin. Every line is so gorgeous. I also love how you use line breaks: and the expanse that each line break opens up for me while reading. That allows me to savour your beautiful words even more deeply. 🌻
Thank you so much Trivarna, for your beautiful words and gorgeous reflections on the words and form of my poem 🥹🩵 it truly means the world to me to know how specially you loved and savoured each line and word ✨☁️🌿 thank you for being here!
Ahh Oorja!! It’s my absolute pleasure - your words and ideas always expand and inspire me too! So happy to know you love the mosaics and I can’t wait to dive into yours too 🤩🍑🌿☁️💛
Oh Suyin, this piece filled me with so much rainbow, ethereal sweetness. The line“writing odes for no reason at all, other than that we love” is so gorgeous, it took my breath away with a smile.
I am currently sitting surrounded by eucalyptus trees with a kookaburra watching over me. I am wrapped in a thick jacket and woven blanket to keep me warm against the cold winter’s air.
The sun is setting and the sun has melted into a peach coloured sky. Reading your ode to summer and bathing in a peach sky makes me feel like summer is out there somewhere and will return to me once again. For now, I will breathe in the scent of rainforest with a frozen nose and hands as I dream about dancing with water fairies in a lilac sea 🥲💜🧚🏻♀️
I am saving this for when summer returns to Australia. It is absolutely stunning and magical!!
Dear Jennae, thank you so much for such a gorgeous receiving of my poem 🥲💜 I’m so happy that you liked that line about writing odes - it’s one of my favourites too! It’s so, so beautiful to know how you read my poem amidst eucalyptus woods and with a kookaburra for company - I love kookaburras - there’s this song I remember from my childhood about a kookaburra sitting in an old gum tree - maybe it came from Australia?
It touched me so much to read what you said about summer being out there waiting to return to you again 🥹💗 I really feel that deeply for you too. And I’m so glad in the meantime that this poem can be a home for your summer dreams about water fairies in a lilac sea ✨✨
Yes! That’s an Australian song! 😄 I always sing that too when I see one haha I didn’t know that it made its way to other countries around the world 🤎🤍 I also love Kookaburras.
Oh wow me too! Every time I see the word kookaburra I start singing that song in my head 🥰 it was the song that made me feel I loved kookaburras despite never having seen one in real life. I’m so glad I get to experience their essence through your words and pictures 🩵🩵
Thank you so much Clare! I’m so glad you enjoyed this and really appreciate your kind words about my Substack title ☺️ And I love your description of summer - I feel it captures a very special essence of Hong Kong for me ✨
Yes I've been to Hong Kong a few times, in March, May and December. I found March and May most similar to Singapore weather, December was so lovely and cool - something we never experience in Singapore, and I found that many people were wearing puffy jackets that reminded me of winter. I guess in my mind, I think about Hong Kong in terms of the warmer season (that I associate with "summer", though it's not technically accurate) and the cooler season (that I associate with "winter") :) Iced lemon tea and the alive smell of night are also two things I connect with Hong Kong regardless of the time of year, and I do miss that!
So so beautiful! Summer to me is ripe peaches dripping down my fingertips, early sunrises and sweaty walks, barely there clothes and sunkissed shoulders and this year everything feels even more special because of my daughter (first fireworks, first beach trip, park picnic, first strawberry and juicy mango...)
I also loved how you link and refer back to what inspired you! That Yuzu temple tea sounds gorgeous and we have jacaranda trees here as well but they bloom in Spring... so so wild! 🪻🍵⛱️🍓👒🧡
Ahhh Joscelyne I love what you shared, it reads like a poem to me too! So gorgeous! I love all the warm shades and hues made up of ripe peaches, sunrises and sunkissed skin - my heart fills up to know that now summer will be made up of the memories of Evie's first summer too! Yes, I think given our shared cultural / culinary tastes you would absolutely love the Yuzu temple tea! Our bloom season for jacaranda trees stretches over late spring until around mid summer, so I was happy to still be able to stand under the purple petals falling from the jacaranda tree in my neighbourhood even a couple of weeks after writing this poem :) So happy to be able to share these experiences with you! <3 <3
Here was my Ode to Summer I wrote some years ago...
Summer streams in waves of wonder
Sand and sea to delight and ponder
Ripples of breeze tease linen and cotton
Dandelion drifts are all but forgotten
To wander in water and float in the swell
Erases the days to linger and dwell
Begin again and create anew
The warmth of sun surrenders to blue
The kiss of the night beckons the stars
Moon reflections lap at the shores
Darkness is punctured with pinpoints of light
Numb with the fears that turn to insight
Soon the daybreak and ombre of dawn
Capture the focus, conclusions are drawn
To soften the gaze and penetrate the sand
Billions of grains sift through your hands
Each is unique broken apart
The chemistry of cosmos began with a start
Fleeting this season of solstice and slumber
Summer streams in waves of wonder
Hi Wendy, wow - this is such a stunning poem!! I loved every part of it! Thank you so much for being here and sharing your gorgeous ode to summer <3
Thank you 🙏🏼 and Your ode was beautiful and evocative too~ 💜
Thank you for your kind words, Wendy! 🍑☁️💛
This is gorgeous and so sensory Wendy! 😍
🥰 oh thank you!
Gorgeous Suyin!! I feel the fragrance of summer weaved through all your beautiful words 🌞🌸💖
Ahhh thank you so much Aaliyah!! That warms my heart to hear 🥰💖 Happy start of summer! ☀️
You too!! ☺️🌞
I stopped under a jacaranda yesterday, waiting for the wind to shake the tree and shower me with the blossoms. Lovely ode to summer, Suyin! I read it yesterday and waited to see it on the desktop- what lovely poem art!
That’s so beautiful, Priya!! 💜 A few days after your note, I also found myself under a jacaranda tree here in Porto that had purple blossoms falling all around. It was magical. So happy to hear that you had such a special encounter with a jacaranda tree too. I’m curious as to where you live, if you don’t mind sharing? Thank you for taking the time to appreciate my poem and poem art on your desktop too, it means so much 🥹✨
Wow! Just wow🤯 This reads like a magical fairytale, it honestly left me in awe✨ makes me want to wear lavender dresses, relax and take this summer slow, eating peaches with my eyes closed under a tree, living my fairy dreams🪞 your words never, never fail to transport me and bewitch me 🤍 thank you for such beauty🧚🏻
Thank you sooo much for your lovely words, Nadia!! It fills my heart so much to hear about the world you were transported to through the poem - wearing lavender dresses, eating peaches and living in a fairy dream 🧚♂️☁️ sounds absolutely perfect - I’d love to visit you there 😍 thank you always for your beautiful way of looking at and reflecting back to me the world in my words, it means so much! 🥲💗💗
Let’s meet there 🧚🏻♀️🧚🏻♀️
Your imagery in your poem is so ethereal and pretty!!!
Thank you so much for reading, and for your lovely words on my poem, Sidney! ✨ It makes me so happy to know you liked the poem, and I'm looking forward to reading your writing too 🤍
Wow I love this piece, Suyin. Every line is so gorgeous. I also love how you use line breaks: and the expanse that each line break opens up for me while reading. That allows me to savour your beautiful words even more deeply. 🌻
Thank you so much Trivarna, for your beautiful words and gorgeous reflections on the words and form of my poem 🥹🩵 it truly means the world to me to know how specially you loved and savoured each line and word ✨☁️🌿 thank you for being here!
I am so grateful for your mention, and I love your mosaics!!! So inspired to make mosaics like yours 🤍
Ahh Oorja!! It’s my absolute pleasure - your words and ideas always expand and inspire me too! So happy to know you love the mosaics and I can’t wait to dive into yours too 🤩🍑🌿☁️💛
Oh Suyin, this piece filled me with so much rainbow, ethereal sweetness. The line“writing odes for no reason at all, other than that we love” is so gorgeous, it took my breath away with a smile.
I am currently sitting surrounded by eucalyptus trees with a kookaburra watching over me. I am wrapped in a thick jacket and woven blanket to keep me warm against the cold winter’s air.
The sun is setting and the sun has melted into a peach coloured sky. Reading your ode to summer and bathing in a peach sky makes me feel like summer is out there somewhere and will return to me once again. For now, I will breathe in the scent of rainforest with a frozen nose and hands as I dream about dancing with water fairies in a lilac sea 🥲💜🧚🏻♀️
I am saving this for when summer returns to Australia. It is absolutely stunning and magical!!
Dear Jennae, thank you so much for such a gorgeous receiving of my poem 🥲💜 I’m so happy that you liked that line about writing odes - it’s one of my favourites too! It’s so, so beautiful to know how you read my poem amidst eucalyptus woods and with a kookaburra for company - I love kookaburras - there’s this song I remember from my childhood about a kookaburra sitting in an old gum tree - maybe it came from Australia?
It touched me so much to read what you said about summer being out there waiting to return to you again 🥹💗 I really feel that deeply for you too. And I’m so glad in the meantime that this poem can be a home for your summer dreams about water fairies in a lilac sea ✨✨
Sending you so much love 🍑☁️💛💛
Yes! That’s an Australian song! 😄 I always sing that too when I see one haha I didn’t know that it made its way to other countries around the world 🤎🤍 I also love Kookaburras.
Oh wow me too! Every time I see the word kookaburra I start singing that song in my head 🥰 it was the song that made me feel I loved kookaburras despite never having seen one in real life. I’m so glad I get to experience their essence through your words and pictures 🩵🩵
Aww I hope you get to meet one in person some day!! 🥰
summer is sleepy days of iced tea and the alive smell of the night!
thank you for this gorgeous mosaic Suyin! (also a beautiful substack title, btw!)
Thank you so much Clare! I’m so glad you enjoyed this and really appreciate your kind words about my Substack title ☺️ And I love your description of summer - I feel it captures a very special essence of Hong Kong for me ✨
have you been to Hong Kong before? I would think it’s similar to Singapore in terms of the heat and humidity 🤔
Yes I've been to Hong Kong a few times, in March, May and December. I found March and May most similar to Singapore weather, December was so lovely and cool - something we never experience in Singapore, and I found that many people were wearing puffy jackets that reminded me of winter. I guess in my mind, I think about Hong Kong in terms of the warmer season (that I associate with "summer", though it's not technically accurate) and the cooler season (that I associate with "winter") :) Iced lemon tea and the alive smell of night are also two things I connect with Hong Kong regardless of the time of year, and I do miss that!
So so beautiful! Summer to me is ripe peaches dripping down my fingertips, early sunrises and sweaty walks, barely there clothes and sunkissed shoulders and this year everything feels even more special because of my daughter (first fireworks, first beach trip, park picnic, first strawberry and juicy mango...)
I also loved how you link and refer back to what inspired you! That Yuzu temple tea sounds gorgeous and we have jacaranda trees here as well but they bloom in Spring... so so wild! 🪻🍵⛱️🍓👒🧡
Ahhh Joscelyne I love what you shared, it reads like a poem to me too! So gorgeous! I love all the warm shades and hues made up of ripe peaches, sunrises and sunkissed skin - my heart fills up to know that now summer will be made up of the memories of Evie's first summer too! Yes, I think given our shared cultural / culinary tastes you would absolutely love the Yuzu temple tea! Our bloom season for jacaranda trees stretches over late spring until around mid summer, so I was happy to still be able to stand under the purple petals falling from the jacaranda tree in my neighbourhood even a couple of weeks after writing this poem :) So happy to be able to share these experiences with you! <3 <3
finally got here & loved it! thank you. cant wait to read more :)
Thank you so much for being here, and I'm so glad that you love it!! :) <3 <3