For such a hyper-capitalistic city as Kuala Lumpur, I was pleasantly surprised yesterday afternoon by the lack of advertisements in their subway. (It’s actually an above-ground ‘light-rail-train.’) In fact, rather than the usual Coke or cell phone provider posters, each car has four poems to read while waiting for your stop. Avoiding politics – or trying to anyway – most of the poems centered on nature and love. Coming back from Little India last night, I read the following poem by William Wordsworth:

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed–and gazed–but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

It is now my time to wander lonely as a cloud, to retreat into my turtle’s shell for a short time, and gain some perspective. I probably won’t be blogging again for the next couple weeks. So your entertainment is now completely at the hands of that cheeky monkey, el Moreno. I wish you luck.