Perhaps not to be is to be without your being

Perhaps not to be is to be without your being,
without your going, that cuts noon light
like a blue flower, without your passing
later through fog and stones,
without the torch you lift in your hand
that others may not see as golden,
that perhaps no one believed blossomed
the glowing origin of the rose,
without, in the end, your being, your coming
suddenly, inspiringly, to know my life,
blaze of the rose-tree, wheat of the breeze:
and it follows that I am, because you are:
it follows from ‘you are’, that I am, and we:
and, because of love, you will, I will,
We will, come to be. 

True is not merely the absence of tension. It's the presence of justice.

Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.

Homelessness is the loss first of community and finally of the self.

Kingsolver

On the matter of individual deaths, I believe those in my own neighbourhood are ones I need to attend to first, by means of casseroles and whatever else I can off. I also believe it's possible to be so overtaken and stupified by the tragedies of the world that we don't have any time or energy left for those closer to home, the hurts we should take as our own.

But  I have a different sort of brain. For me, knowing does not replace doing. I find I sometimes need time off from the world of things I can't do anything about so I may be granted the serenity to accept the things I can, and the wisdom to know the  difference.

Barbara Kingsolver.

Lo mas importante que todo

Cuando el ejército nacional
de ocupación en el país,
desbarató la huelga
de los ferrocarrileros
por más pan, un obrero decía:
“Verdad que lo dije.
No se puede luchar
contra la fuerza bruta.
Lo dije.  Y nadie me creía.
Somos, en verdad, tan débiles
y estamos tan solos
que lo mejor será
aguantarse en el trabajo,
para que nadie nos despida.
Así no tendremos
que morirnos del hambre.”

Y un fogonero, agregaba:
“Uno se acostumbra
tanto a sufrir,
que nada puede dolerle más
de lo que ya le duele.
Sería mejor ahorrar
para el entierro.”
Y otro obrero, decía:
“No somos nada. Nada.
Absolutamente nada.
Y no podemos hacer nada.

Y otro dijo:
“Son cosas del destino.
Nos ha tocado ser pobres.
Y seguiremos siendo pobres
hasta la consumación
de todos los siglos.”

Mas vino un último
que hablo así:
“El hombre no tiene destino.
Tan solo tiene manos, y lo que él
hace con ellas, 
es lo que el hombre nombra su destino,
su biografía, su leyenda.
Mirad, por ejemplo, vuestras manos:
son tan fuertes y potentes.
Y son la cuerda del mundo.
Y mirad vuestros rostros:
tienen aspecto de futuro.
Y en ellos despunta la victoria.
Y si alguien duda,
porque nos han derrotado
por ahora, debe saber
que el tiempo
traer una sonrisa roja
en lo más blando
de su alma.
¿Qué se hizo, por ejemplo,
el puño de acero inoxidable
de los viejos tiranos?
¿En dónde están
los viejos zares.
Los antiguos mandarines.
Los sombríos amos
de la Europa oriental?
¿Dónde se esconden
ahora los colonialistas?
¿Dónde están
Los que habían envilecido
a Cuba
y afrentado el gesto azul
del mar Caribe?
No lo olviden,
Compañeros,
el tiempo trae
una sonrisa roja
con olor a mandato de masas.
Si no hoy, será mañana.
Si no es mañana, será después.
Siempre existe un después
para cada derrota.
Y los perseguidos de ahora
Serán los perseguidores de mañana.
No olviden esto, caballeros verdugos:
La derrota de hoy
será la victoria de mañana.”
Y luego que habló,
se confundió con la masa
de obreros derrotados.

Y nadie más
Sintió inútil ese día,
en el que las tropas
nacionales de ocupación,
habían desbaratado la huelga
de lo ferrocarrileros por más pan.
He aquí, pues, lo más importante
de hablar siempre con el pueblo.
Aun en las horas
de las más graves decepciones,
no lo olvidéis nunca,
compañeros,
la palabra revolución
va siempre unida
al vocablo esperanza.

Que es el exito?

Es poder irse a la cama cada noche con el alma en Paz.

Ulysses

It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Matched with an agèd wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honoured of them all; And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnished, not to shine in use! As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains: but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it were For some three suns to store and hoard myself, And this grey spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. This my son, mine own Telemachus, To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle— Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil This labour, by slow prudence to make mild A rugged people, and through soft degrees Subdue them to the useful and the good. Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere Of common duties, decent not to fail In offices of tenderness, and pay Meet adoration to my household gods, When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail: There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners, Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me— That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old; Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew Though much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Alfred,Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)