Sahyadrica

From inside the dung of a macaque a seed sprouts. It will be carried in the swell of this wild Kalu River till it takes hold along the riverbank and bury its roots deep into the earth, making its mark in rewilding the Earth. A zoochorous seed’s journey Towards the beginning of winter when wild grass is heavy with seed, clumps of discarded seedcoats can be seen at terminals of tiny whitish lines drawn across the forest floor. These small lines belong to a specific ant – the Harvester Ant. In India, ants in the genus Monomorium , Pheidole , and Meranoplus discard parts of seedcoats in heaps – called ant middens – around burrows that lead to their underground nests. Midden of a Harvester Ant ( Monomorium  sp.) in a meadow in northern Western Ghats. Grass seeds are dispersed by wind, eaten up by passerines, and collected by mice. Ants are the lesser-known hoarders – more than handfuls of seedcoats of assorted grasses can be collected from the middens in the peak of the harvest seaso...

1. A foxbee trots in a grove, flower-to-flower, her tail flailing side-to-side as her wings buzz to-and-fro Ere darkness she returns to her burrow, a small furrow, amidst Merrywinkle Grove, of lush greens and violets against white snow. A warm hearth in her heart beats rhythmically to the thrum of the Earth, waking with a soft glow. She buzzes ere break of dawn to visit the lawn unkempt and unowned in the little farm brazen and forlorn. In cups of merrywinkle in thickets of pinthorn, spikelets of ashybrush and bristlecorn, vines of contorted forms, Step-by-step, on nimble feet, she takes a sip, her wings beat, oh, what fate, in has crept, of cold sprinkled hate. 2. A fire-tailed rat offers petals to greet, and caches merrywinkle seeds to eat, ten feet ‘neath the peat. When the winds blow cold, with cotton his burrow he’d mould, and sleep on his bed of leaves in autumn breeze. He wakes early at daybreak, with the first summer shake, his blazing t...