i need a break. i need to put myself around people who care and are not reckless with my heart. i need to stop being around people whose hearts i'm reckless with, at least until i learn how to stop being reckless with their hearts. i need to take myself out of situations where i have to pretend and end up feeling confused about who i am and utterly empty and alone inside. i definitely need to distance myself from triggers until i learn how to be calm. of course, i'll still have to go to school and meet my boss and get work done and blablubleah, but i will need to be more discerning regarding my socialising and activities.

sometimes, you have this bad feeling about things, but you just do it anyway, and it really turns out bad? some people call it the self-fulfilling prophecy or the workings of the laws of attraction, others call it intuition or gut feeling. well, i think it doesn't matter what it's called. if the feeling is there, i'm going to trust it for now. think about it. if it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you feel bad about it thereby causing it to turn out bad, would it change if you felt "good" about it? perhaps. but would you be able to change your mind to feel genuinely good about it. perhaps, with the help of cognitive dissonance or something. but i don't really buy that. if you feel bad about it, you just do, because some part of you is screaming no to it. and if that part is not resolved, it's going to screw everything up thus fulfilling your self-created prophecy. you can apply cognitive dissonance tactics on yourself, but you're just bullshitting yourself really. so the other scenario, gut feeling or intuition. well, if it really is and it really works, what have you got to lose? so i say, no point rushing into things, changing your feelings to suit the occasion instead of dealing with why it's even there (it'll come back with a vengeance!). instead, i will just say no when those bad feelings come and deal with them slowly and steadily. even if it means staying home on a friday night or breaking a daily routine.

i think i'm ready to leave my room today. i don't know how it'll be tomorrow. let's just take on today for now.

i was on the way to school this morning and the bus was passing this motor parts store along jalan besar (???), the one with the mannequins dressed in motor sportswear standing on top of the roof in poses too cool for school. so here's what tickled me today right. there was this guy (a mannequin) with a really long beard and a really long mustache dressed in his finest qing dynasty gear frozen in a chinese opera stance inviting passerbys to enter the store. then i glanced up on the roof right. and the mannequins who were usually decked in mini skirts and funky jackets were now in their finest chinese new year clothings ready to go to their uncles and aunties to collect their new year hong bao (red packets (money envelopes)). it just cracked me up! then i started wondering about them standing up there rain or shine, and lately, alot of rain. and i was like, oh what a pity! their new year clothes! then i was wondering further, maybe someone goes up on the roof to wear raincoats on them and place umbrellas over them when it rains. or maybe, they are brought in or stripped or i don't know? i wonder if there is a special job for that. hmmm. whatever.

so then, i was sitting on the second deck of the double-decker bus and still looking outside and General Wu Tang was now somewhere far behind when i noticed the outer casing of the red light camera and i don't know why but my first instinct was to check that i had my seatbelt on. the only thing is, buses don't have seatbelts and for a few seconds, i was wondering where i was. have you ever had that feeling of losing the sense of where you are physically? like when you wake up after an afternoon nap and it's evening and the sun is almost down or already gone, and you feel disoriented and puzzled about time and space? or when you sit down and keep still for a while and suddenly you feel like you've floated away from your body? like your arm or leg doesn't belong to you anymore? i don't know, it just happens.


i don't know why but despite all my fellow year 4 friends telling me they don't see people they know around in school very much already, i keep seeing them all the time. however, i feel a strong urge to remain unnoticed, unrecognised, invisible. when i choose a place to sit, i'm hoping it's the most obscure (but comfortable) place. or if i'm walking, i've decreased my range of visibility to like right infront of me, trying not to turn my head left and right too much though i love to look at things. i don't know why. perhaps it's just a phase. perhaps i'm scared that i'm really forgotten, unnoticed, invisible and don't want to know it for sure. it's pretty silly but that's me right now. shireen the recluse. the hermit. the whatever. maybe i should read that exchange manual that OIR sent for students coming back from exchange. i don't know. i think i'll concentrate on finishing this mushroom spaghetti that tastes like phlegm and get down to work. irk.

talk

i suddenly feel so tired. so tired of small talk. so tired of all talk. talking about internships talking about cute guys and summer scandals and exchange, about injustice and hurt and blame. i'm tired of talking about my problems and dreams, about love about life, about things i know nothing about, about the things of my secret garden as though they were merely weeds to be trampled on, ordinary, meaningless, mere coincidences. tired of talking about why i'm sad, about what makes me happy, about myself, about you, you and you. tired of talking to fill up the space, talking to connect, to belong, to be noticed, to not be alone. man i'm tired of talking about talking. i'm just so. tired. of. talking. what's the point.

it's funny, it really is, how you sound sick, like you've got a cold, when you've lost all drive to talk.

out to get you

another brilliant song by james. out to get you. check out their live performance on one of their gigs during their last tour. amazing! excuse the glitches and jokes in the first part, just adds to their charm and simplicity. so just plug in your earphones, stick them into your ears, play this video and be blown away, gradually but eventually. mind you, this is just the live performance, raw and uneditted. and i particularly enjoyed watching tim booth (vocals) spinning around and flailing his arms in a trance.



besides that, =).

bigger than my body

my pinchable cheeks have always been one of my trademarks. "oh hey look at shireen. let's pinch her cheeks yay!" that kinda nonsense. so imagine my joy when mutu (M.P.) tried to pinch my cheeks and realised he couldn't pinch them anymore. hooray for weight loss yay because no matter how heck care you are about your weight, and if you are a girl and not terribly skinny, you can't deny that a tiny grin finds its way onto your face or you get a little light-headed with a sense of victory when someone says, "wow, you've lost a lot of weight ar?" and then, that little modest angel in you goes, "aw, nar.." or "what? you mean i was so fat last time.." and then the complimenter thinks, "man, girls are hard to please!"

so anyway, the point is, my cheeks are once again pinchable!!! shock horror gasp faint!! and my dear mother does not fail to point this out to me by laughing at the roundness of my face in the middle of giving me some instructions for whatever. in fact, a few days ago, i was looking in the mirror and marvelling at my cute little small mouth (also my trademark), only to realise it was cuter and smaller perhaps because my face was rounder! shock horror gasp! take me back to new zealand so that i can grimace at the high prices of restaurant food and washing dishes and survive on a staple diet of tuna sushi and a measly amount of something else which would constitute my two meals a day and a hell lot of walking from anywhere to anywhere you name it! aaargh!

what can i do? christmas, new year, holiday, ice-cream and chocolates, cheap hawker food everywhere, public transport, cars, taxis, oh my! so i tried to almost starve yesterday in my panic and today i helped myself to a nice bowl on ben n jerry's ice cream.

i can't believe i dedicated a whole or half post to food and weight-loss shame on you shireen.

oh bother, school is starting again soon. it makes me think about my days in otago last semester. well, about the days i did actually go for classes and study in the library. i liked it. i loved going to the music lab underground with windows near the top where you could see the feet of people walking by while trying to churn out a piece of music that would rock the instructor's socks off. it was like my secret dungeon, which opened up to a whole other universe once you were in it. i wish i had my own lab like that in my room with maybe just one mac desktop and one keyboard. for that one semester at least, i could do something i really loved without writing essays and whatever and actually be graded for it (with an A by the way!). but who's gonna care right? just me.

when i was on exchange, i actually found a new sense of confidence in myself. besides all the other stuff that comes with the package when you live independently, i was actually doing really well in school without the stress! or if there was stress, it would be the night before a big roadtrip where i was rushing to finish a bunch of essays beforehand so that i could enjoy the roadtrip with no dark clouds looming ahead. the end result, a bunch of As and well, one B+ but hey, all my essays and projects came out with As and A+s. and what's more, i thoroughly enjoyed myself and did almost everything i ever wanted to on my little getaways! and i remember thinking to myself, i am shining over here! i am a nobody but i am shining!

then i got back home, and it meant coming back to the reality of internships and grades and class participation points. pui! so anyway, to my horror, i realised that i would only be able to graduate with a merit, not even a cum laude, no matter how many A+s i get next sem! my grades in otago didn't matter because you only get pass/fail for your exchange credits (which i knew from the start, but wanted to shine, well, just because i could and for myself). and i thought about the hordes of other students who were aiming for their magnas and summas and i recalled my conversations with my career counselor months ago and how discouraged i felt after every session, feeling lousy, not-good-enough, a jack-of-all-trades, mediocre and lackluster. but see, something didn't add up. all my talents, my achievements, my character and personality reduced to one or two pieces of paper and a number? ah, what a waste i thought, what a waste. there's so much more!! way too much!

and so while i go on with life back here in singapore, joining in the crowds in the buses and trains and hunting for internships and preparing for classes and wondering about my future and all that jazz, i'm not entirely what you see. you may see me in the crowds, you may not. i may be invisible and insignificant, my presence just a feather floating from one point to the next. i may be just like any other girl you see, worrying about her weight and her looks, unpredictable and confusing, wearing hoop earrings and flip flops and talking about the most mundane things like the weather and heroes season 2 and whatever. ah, but what you can't see is this.

"Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." (from the little prince) in me lies another universe where i see things in different colours and where possibilities are infinite and where memories carry me far, far away and help me believe in miracles. these thoughts i carry, these things i see, these things i've done, these places i've been to, these emotions i've experienced, there are some things noone can ever understand or experience the way i do and in that loneliness, it is untouched and sacred.

i just need to smile more.

"Bodies. Oh, groan. I've always just wanted to leave this body of mine. What a treat that would be. To be a beam of light, a little comet, jiggling itself loose from these wretched bones. My inner beauty could shine and soar! But no, my body is my test in life."
- Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland

sometimes, when i look deep in your eyes, i swear i can see your soul

you have to listen to this song by James. papa put the cd in the car and everytime i drive it these days, i play it on repeat. each time i listen to it, i fall in love with it more. and it doesn't help that it's been raining like mad too. and listening to it while driving in the rain and smiling through the tears, it just makes my heart burst. BURST!

and i love how they are all standing so upright and firm and strumming their guitars with a mission in their eyes.

p.s. you really have to listen to it!



There's a storm outside, and the gap between crack and thunder
Crack and thunder, is closing in, is closing in
The rain floods gutters, and makes a great sound on the concrete
On a flat roof, there's a boy leaning against the wall of rain
Aerial held high, calling "come on thunder, come on thunder"

Sometimes, when I look deep in your eyes, I swear I can see your soul
Sometimes, when I look deep in your eyes, I swear I can see your soul

It's a monsoon, and the rain lifts lids off cars
Spinning buses like toys, stripping them to chrome
Across the bay, the waves are turning into something else
Picking up fishing boats and spewing them on the shore

The boy is hit, lit up against the sky, like a sign, like a neon sign
And he crumples, drops into the gutter, cut strings, legs twitching
The flood swells his clothes and delivers him on, delivers him on

Sometimes, when I look deep in your eyes, I swear I can see your soul
Sometimes, when I look deep in your eyes, I swear I can see your soul

There's four new colors in the rainbow
An old man's taking polaroids
But all he captures is endless rain, endless rain, endless rain.
He says listen, takes my head and puts my ear to his
And I swear I can hear the sea

Somtimes, when I look in your eyes I can see your soul
(I can reach your soul)
(I can touch your soul)
Sometimes

- Sometimes by James

raw

i wonder, no. i know, that i seem to place a lot of importance in pleasing people. it's pretty funny, and maybe even pretty insane.

like take for instance, i was at this retreat from monday to wednesday at the canossian spirituality centre where i happened to pick up a few books from the library about dying. and some other books not about dying as well. took the whole stack and sat outside my room along the balcony/corridor facing the bukit batok nature reserve. the australian priest who stays there comes along as his office is nearby my chosen spot. he asks what book i'm reading and i tell him, "life after death" by raymond moody and he says something about how we should be reading books about and focusing on this life first and it's my response to this that perplexes me. i look like i'm there talking with evelyn and cheryl anne and we've gone on to other subjects and are laughing about other things and the priest has already gone into into his office but in my mind, i'm still stuck on the same one subject. "what's wrong with this book i'm reading? what's wrong with me? does the priest think i'm not very wise? i hate that he thinks i'm foolish. i hate that maybe i've been foolish all this while. i don't want to be foolish. i don't want him to think i'm foolish. i want him to think i'm special. i want him to like me. blablabla."

and then i started thinking, how nonsensical these thoughts are. firstly, i'm shireen. secondly, i'm interested in this dying thing, in those spectacular, intense, scary, beautiful, unpredictable moments separating one life from another and, so what? thirdly, why do i care so much about what this priest thinks about me? i am who i am and i love who i was made to be.

take another example for instance. i was leading praise and worship for session today and i was pretty nervous. i know i prepared and i prayed and i reflected. i know that what i typed out on those pieces of paper was real and genuine and not just plain fluff. then it was time to start. i stood there, looked around at the faces of my friends as i was sharing, praying, leading, and i would see what i thought was a blank face and i'd start thinking about what this person is thinking. "oh, why is she so long-winded? can she just get to the song already? i want to sit down. ok, good try leading, shireen. at least, she tried." and then i'd start thinking, "oh man, am i really lousy at this? do they think all i said is fluff? maybe it is. who i am kidding? it probably is. blablabla."

and then now i think about it. and it's just plain rubbish again. these thoughts. how sad it is that i discount my own experiences and identity because of the fear that others may not like or agree with me. these thoughts get so loud and in-my-face i sometimes get bored and nervous about the sound of my own voice when i'm talking to others.

see, it's not the priest. i have nothing against him. i rather like him, he could be santa if he had a long white beard and snowy locks. it's not my friends who just happened to look the way they do. it's just that i've been like this as far as i can remember. i want to please people. i want people to like me, to say good things about me....but ultimately, it's because i want to know i'm not wrong, that i didn't make the wrong choices, that i'm a good person, that i'm lovable. like, i have to be a certain way to be lovable, to prove to you that i'm lovable. which is just crazy because i know i'm a good person. i know who i am. i know i love who god has made me to be, just the way i am. i know this. and yet, why do i need to prove it to anyone?

i guess i'm beginning to understand why. i grew up like this. i don't blame anyone. but i somehow learnt that to avoid being blamed and hated and shunned and misjudged by the people closest to me, i had to make myself liked by them. because i paid a price when i was disapproved of. i found myself feeling guilty and disgusted with myself when i was disapproved of. maybe it was their words, maybe it was my need to feel loved and accepted, maybe it was their insecurities, maybe it was my need to prove to them i was a good person and they could trust and depend on me, that i wasn't the monster they said i was, that i didn't deserve to be called and labeled all the things they called and labeled me as, maybe i just wanted them not to give up on believing in life and its goodness. alot of maybes. i bent over backwards and bit my lip so many times for it. it ate me up inside. i could handle it though. i was strong. i trusted and believed. i loved.

but these days, every little sign of disapproval or disagreement or lack of interest in me seems to get me feeling edgy and worried, like i failed something. and i'm not so nice about it anymore. i don't just take it in anymore like i used to. initially, i still might, but then i hate patronising people and i hate living in a bubble of untruth. i want to make people pay for it, to show them that they made me feel this way, to make them feel the same way i feel, or just to assure me that i'm still loved. or i just believe what they say about me and fall deeper into my doubts about myself. i'm short on love and high on impatience and anxiety. i'm slow to love but fast to get angry and upset. i show everything opposite of what paul says about love in corinthians. impatient, rude, angry, jealous, insecure, keeps account of wrongdoings, you name it, you got it.

that's not all. i start to feel i've failed and not done my duty as a good person when i see all this suffering around me and can't do anything about it or don't know how to. i feel so disappointed in myself, i feel i don't have a right to be so happy, all these things. it all somehow links with all the misery i inflicted upon myself when others inflicted their own misery on me. i felt i didn't have a right to be so happy then. that if they were miserable, then i should be too. maybe all this, this whole post, it all sounds crazy. but i don't think i'm alone in having thoughts like these. i think we all have them, some of us, more, and some, not so much.

well not every uneasy feeling is bad. sometimes, restlessness is a sign that one needs to be spurred to take action about something important. but i won't talk about that now though some of the uneasiness i feel now is about that too. and some of the uneasiness i feel now also has to do with a whole lot of other stuff as well. but i'll probably never get round to sleeping and just end up with a very bad headache if i try to think it ALL out now...

well, at least now i can put a finger on it more clearly. i don't think i'm spiralling into a black-hole just yet. actually, i think i have been in one for some time (don't need to be surprised, most people never show it). but i guess i'm kinda trying to make my way out and i'm aware i am/was(?) in one. i think i've pretty much become a baby again, in loving, in believing. but i still love, and i still believe. i think i've fallen many steps behind but i know it's not the end, it's not everything and i know it's time to humble myself and take those baby steps. i feel like i am starting from the beginning all over again and progress is slow, oh how i stumble and fall again and again. how i throw my tantrums and become a lump of hopelessness (i'm sorry and thank you for your patience). but i am taking those baby steps determinedly, with thanks and praise in my heart. baby hope, baby faith. but still hope and faith nonetheless. don't let me let go.

last year, i was working in the same project group with a girl who had cancer. we weren't close at all and i only got to know her because we had to work together and she was in my class for that course. after a while, she started missing classes more and we had to take on some of her project parts, but she never failed to do up her parts and send them to us. she always dressed up and put on make up and she was pretty vocal in class, asking, answering question after question, and this was one girl class participation points wouldn't really have mattered to. she passed away some time this year or last, i no longer recall.

but i suddenly thought about her today and remembered that her msn contact is still on my contact list. how many months days hours has it been since she signed in for the last time? i thought about her and i wondered about her last months days hours since the doctors told her she was going to die. i wondered about the way she received love from her parents friends boyfriend. i wondered about how she loved them. her boyfriend. i wondered about her boyfriend and how he must have really loved her and the pains and the aches they both felt in those last months hours days which nothing could ever alleviate and how they wouldn't trade it for anything because it meant more months hours days seconds nanoseconds with each other. i wondered about how each waking hour appeared to her knowing she was going to die so soon. i wondered at the immensity of the ordeal she would have gone through and how that separated her from us, mere, ordinary students concerned with internships careers success magna cum laudes and how we would never know what it was to be her or her boyfriend or her parents or her brother or sister if she had any, well at least, for most of us. i smiled as i saw her msn nick a cute abbreviation for her name followed by "aka daddy's little girl" and i wondered about that. it's funny, we leave this world but when we do, we leave EVERYTHING behind, even our msn nicknames. traces of our existence strewn across the lives of others, people we met once, people we knew our whole lives, people we never met at all. i also wondered about the rest of my contacts on my contact list, some of whom whose identities now elude me. no, it's not an obsession with the morbid and yes, most of them are probably around my age but seriously, are all those people still alive? and i wonder about random blogs, facebook friendster whatever profiles we come across randomly, and it's just possible that perhaps some of those random ones you come across belong to people who aren't in this world any longer. i don't have a summary a conclusion or a point i'm trying to well, point out. but doesn't all this just make you...wonder?

there was this thing we did in queenstown called river surfing. you hang on to this board, try to latch on to the downstream current of the whitewater river and off you go! river surfing was pretty challenging for me. i don't know why but i felt paralysed in the flippers and kept getting sucked back into eddy currents. it was so hard to join the main flow of the river. and when i actually did, i would be cruising along just fine like a pro all the way until the guides made us catch an eddy current to wait for the rest. i hated those parts, catching those eddy currents. because 1. it was so hard for me to enter them 2. it was so hard for me to exit from them. by the end of the day, every muscle in my body had gotten a good beating and stayed that way for days.

coming home feels a bit like river surfing. the river is flowing as it should, as it always has been. and you are just thrown back into its flow. and it's a struggle entering into that main flow again. those eddy currents that pull you away. those eddy currents which don't let you come back. you're stuck between those eddy currents and the main flow and it's an agonising state of limbo as you watch your peers cruise by like pros. you try to kick harder but you're kicking wrongly and being pulled back even more.

see, when we look forward to coming home, we most often visualise images from the past and take comfort in them, looking forward to experiencing those moments again. and when we get back, we get a rude shock sometimes. because things change, people change, everything changes. and we find the real picture is vastly different from those we held in memories.

i was hoping for so much. i was holding out for so much.

as i always say, oh. well.

today's song is dire strait's "so far away". i love it! the starting bassline, the way the chorus comes in, the deep vocals, the instrumentals, the lyrics. it has this really classic, carefree, bittersweet feeling and like new order songs, brings me back to sunday afternoon drives. papa always plays these cds and the music resonates through the speakers straight into my heart. and when i called home just now, he told me that he had another version of eleanor rigby which he would let me hear soon and was listening to currently. i wonder just how many versions there are. i was looking for it on youtube and heard all sorts of versions ranging from pop rock to jazz to heavy metal and techno. amazing.

my last few days in dunedin, today will be my second last and i'll spend it with pravin who'll be touching down in dunedin in approximately 12 hours or so. can't believe it. my life in singapore is like a whole other world and it'll be so strange to have someone cross over from that world into this one. it'll be strange to see him walking the streets of dunedin, sitting in my car, staying in backpackers together. it just feels like it's been forever since i was here and yet, i will be home in about a week or so.

shanny and i were just reflecting today sometime in the middle of our bimbo tai tai escapade (hey it's possible alright!) today that we might be thinking right now about how we wish we had done so many things earlier or more often or both. but we agreed that it was not really about that. the fact is, things always feel different in the last few moments. every moment takes on a different, more brilliant hue. there's a sense of urgency, revelation, intensity, a certain burst of energy and life, and no matter how many times you've touched the mimosas and watch them close as you stroll on the fields on your way home, no matter how many times you've held the hand of the one you love, no matter how many times you've sat at the same spot staring out of your window at the cars and the trees and the clouds and the people each day, these moments will still feel different when you become aware that those moments may be one of the last ones you'll have.

we were also thinking about how the most intense and extreme experiences are necessary in order for life to progress. we might be mothers one day and we might have to experience labour and the pains of childbirth to bring another life into the world some day. i can't imagine it and yet, it's universal. everyone will have to die one day, and what is more extreme than death in this life? just think about it, as insane and intense as these experiences may seem, everyone must and will go through them. you can choose to skydive, you can choose to bungy, but you can't choose to not die, which is way scarier and more thrilling than any other activity you can conjure. and no coward or hero can ever run away from that.

i know i keep getting all emo and blogging about goodbyes and the last moments and life and death. it's just that these moments inspire me the most, they awaken something in me, they teach me so much more, they put music in my heart and paint all sorts of colours i've never seen before but continually fall in love with. and i want to share this with whoever i can. grab hold of these moments, think about the awesomeness and fragility of this beautiful transient existence and what a miracle each day, each breath is. no matter how boring you feel your life is, no matter how sad an existence you think you lead, no matter how hopeless your future may seem, no matter how mundane your days have been, look beyond it all, be thankful for each and every moment you are presently in. (i really believe that a joyful heart is one that is sincerely thankful.) and love like there's no tomorrow. love like your heart is on your fire and you could just explode from it.

well, i haven't been updating much recently and i doubt i might in the near future since i'll be leaving dunedin this sunday for good, after which i will be roadtripping with pravin and shanny. and soon, i'll be back home. people keep asking me, am i sad to leave? i have this to say. i'm happy i was here. i'm happy i'm here. i'm happy i'll be home soon. i don't wish anything different from what is given to me now. in fact, i'm grateful and i trust even more that i don't have to wish things to be different at all, ever, simply because i know that i'm always given what's best for me. love always wants the best for us. and i trust completely in that love. and if i ever forget, which i so often do, please be patient with me and remind me. shake me up and pinch me silly if you have to, just don't ever let me forget.

all the lonely people, where do they all come from? all the lonely people, where do they all belong?

the beatle's eleanor rigby has been playing on repeat in my head. i wake up in the morning, walk to school for my pricing exam and i'm singing, "all the lonely people, where do they all belong?" i'm walking around after my paper, waiting to pass henry back his book, i'm singing, " all the lonely people, where do they all belong?" i come home, watch the notebook, clean my car and take a nap. and in my sleep i'm singing, "all the lonely people..yadda yadda.." and then i'm on the way to church and i'm still singing it and so it goes. then after supper at a jap bar after a night of jazz at robert burns, we are about to walk to the car. but i hear a bassline which i can't resist and follow the music as though it has cast an invisible spell on me. a band all dressed in black is playing outside lemon room at the octagon in the crisp, cool, midnight air. the old fogeys here dressed in black leather jackets and jeans holding beer bottles and cigarettes in their hands are a world apart from the old fogeys at robert burns which make you feel like you've just entered a scene from the notebook plus (quite) a couple of years later. up till the next moment, the song is perfect but unrecognisable. i sit on a bench and listen as the lead sings the last few lines of the song which brought me there, "all the lonely people, where do they all belong?"

continuities

nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost,
no birth, identity, form--no object of the world.
nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing;
appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere confuse thy brain.
ample are time and space--ample the fields of nature.
the body, sluggish, aged, cold--the embers left from earlier fires,
the light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame again;
the sun now low in the west rises for mornings and for noons continual;
to frozen clods ever the spring's invisible law returns,
with grass and flowers and summer fruits and corn.

- walt whitman