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Woody Earth
Fresh Pine · Wild Mushroom · Green Moss · Rain-soaked Woods
Complete Your Collection
At first light, the small town awakens.
People head to the market from every direction.
Green tamarillos sway in bamboo back baskets,
sunlight catching on their skins.
You bite into one, still cool with morning dew.
Juice bursts, flooding your mouth.
A Yunnan morning,
snapped awake by a hit of green sour.
In the sun-warmed afternoon kitchen,
sticky rice steams in the bamboo steamer.
You drop freshly sliced mango onto the rice.
Steam curls up, pandan leaves flash green.
You take a spoonful,
rice softness and mango sweetness landing like sunlight in your chest.
Everything slows down.
Summer sneaks in.
The courtyard glows gold in the last light.
You sit by the stone table, palm fan swaying slow.
Auntie brings over a bowl of fruit,
cool, fresh, just pulled from the well.
The evening breeze drifts past.
Tart bayberry, soft-sweet lychee,
lifted by fine bubbles, popping bright in the air.
It'ssummer's first sip: fresh, tipsy, and a littlespark.
Afternoon in a small Yunnan town.
A breeze slips through the alleys,
still warm with sunlight.
You follow a thread of scent
step into the café on the street corner.
A steaming latte waits,
golden osmanthus blossoms floating on the foam.
Warm, never heavy,
like afternoon sunlight, held in your hands.