Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and grey
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul
Shadows on the hills
Sketch the trees and daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colours on the snowy linen land
Starry, starry night
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds and violet haze
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue
Colours changing hue
Morning fields of amber grain Weathered faces lined in pain
Are soothed beneath the artists' loving hand
~ Vincent (Starry Starry Night) ~
After celebrating Chinese New Year in Penang for a few days, we departed back home. As we were all afraid of getting caught in the festive traffic jam, we left my aunt's place around 6am.
As Dad drove along the highway, apart from the occasional carlights from the other side of the road, it is all dark. I looked up and can see thousands of stars, shining so brightly against the dark sky. Some were bigger and brighter than the rest, some were slowing fading, as if the first to go as dawn approached.
Stars - mysterious, beautiful celestial objects.
Some worhip them, others study them for fortune telling, some just buy the 'glow-in-the-dark' versions and plastered them onto the ceiling. But even that feeling is wonderful - to lie down in bed to see glowing stars above you, even though they fade away after 1/2 hour. Even Vincent Van Gogh was so inspired, he dedicated a painting just on a starry night in a small town. His stars, however, are huge balls of fire, lighting up the sky. One can just imagine how must passion a star must have, to emit light bright burning bright so we can see them, even though they are so far away from us. I never really like astrology and astronomy, but it's just the stars in the sky which just fascinated me since young.
It reminded me of days when I was still very, very young. Our family friend had a private residence in Port Dickson, and to reach there, one needs to drive through an oil palm plantation. We drove through that road at night. I remembered my friends and I were all so amazed to see so many stars in the sky. Suddenly it felt as if the world was only us and the stars. There was nothing else more beautiful than that moment.
Coming back to 2006, the same feeling dawned upon me again, but somehow the stars have gotten smaller, and fewer (or was it I who had grown??). It's a pity now as I looked at the city skyline, all I see are lights and more lights. Billboards, streetlights, shopping mall lights. No stars in place. Perhaps one day - just one day - there will be a massive blackout (like that during the 1990's), and people will step out of their houses and admire the sky filled with stars. Perhaps then, I will find someone who will agree with me, that indeed, nothing is more beautiful than a starry, starry night.
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