Searching through my old emails, cleaning out the box (it's been a year since I've done this). I came across my favorite poem of all time..sent to me on my birthday last year by my lovely sister, who always knows exactly what to give! It was my 26th B-day and I had just decided to come to New Zealand and was looking into tickets to come here. Now it's the eve of my 27th (a month and 10 days to go!) and I'm looking for my tickets to leave! (On hold until I see how SARS goes...)
So, without further adieu,

somewhere i've never traveled...

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens, only something in my understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

--e e cummings--