If you haven't seen the movie, The English Patient, do yourself a favor and give it a watch on a rainy night. It's a wonderfully written and acted drama.

In one part of the movie, Katharine Clifton (played by Kristin Scott Thomas) and her love, Count Lazlo de Almasy (played by Ralph Fiennes), take refuge in a cave in the middle of the desert after a near death experience that leaves Katharine seriously inured.

Because she is debilitated, the Count leaves Katharine to find help but ends up wandering the desert for days until being captured.

Katharine realizes her fate and writes a letter, or as I read it, a poem. These were her last words:

My darling
I'm waiting for you
How long is a day in the dark?
Or a week?
The fire is gone now
and I'm horribly cold.
I really want to drag myself outside
but then there'd be the sun.
I'm afraid I'd waste the light
and the paintings
as I'm writing these words.

We die. We die rich with lovers
and tribes tastes we have swallowed
bodies we have entered
and swum up like rivers.
Fears we've hidden in like this wretched cave.
I want all this marked on my body.
We're the real countries
not the boundaries drawn on maps
the names of powerful men.

I know you'll come carry me out
into the palace of winds.
That's what I've wanted
to walk in such a place with you
with friends, an earth without maps.

The lamps gone out.
I'm writing the darkness.