My Poetic Rain Affair

I'm writing this in a starbucks tissue paper while waiting for the pouring of rain to stop. Being in a tropical country blessed by abundant rains, I never seem to get quite enough of it. It can ruin any person's day, even mine, but the welcoming cool and sound of rain gives me a feeling of ease and comfort.

I don't mind getting wet or stepping into a puddle. All I know is that rain provides me with pompous cataclysmic energy. I bid summer well. Finally, off with the intense heat! I don't know how I was able to endure my immersion in Middle East last year, but I'm glad to be back with the rains. Goodbye 40+ deg celcius heat! Goodbye sandstorms! Wonder when will I say goodbye to struggles and sufferings, though?!

In the meantime, I welcome the rainy season (even typhoons!) with much optimism, that despite its parallel image of gloom, it nourishes the flow of life and signifies abundance. In another light, I was able to read a poem while browsing one of my favourite blogs (thanks again Jack Rensimer for posting it!) that is truly inspiring. I am never really that fond of peotries but this one made my day.  I would like to repost it here and intends to read it everyday just to make a jumpstart in my usually dragging day.

IF by Rudyard Kipling

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!