ah, an essay question about nature poetry and so on, that might cheer me up!

Some of the royal palms stand...Stripped of their branches, like tall brown pillars, still they stand--defiant.

I hated the place. I hated the mountains and the hills, the rivers and the rain. I hated the sunsets of whatever colour, I hated its beauty and its magic and the secret I would never know. I hated its indifference and the cruelty which was part of its loveliness. Above all I hated her. For she belonged to the magic and the loveliness. She had left me thirsty and all my life would be thirst and longing for what I had lost before I found it.

Watching the red and yellow flowers in the sun thinking of nothing, it was as if a door opened and I was somewhere else, someone else. Not myself any longer.

I turned around and saw the sky. It was red and all my life was in it.

Nights and days and days and nights, hundreds of them slipping through my fingers...

We kissed each other in that stupid room. Spread fans decorated the walls. We had often kissed before but not like that. That was the life and death kiss and you only know a long time afterward what it is, the life and death kiss.