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a poem from karynn

work has been remarkably emotionally trying lately, and my friend karynn just sent me this poem by miguel de unamuno – it’s his last poem, written after he was thrown out of
the university where he taught…:

Shake off this sadness, and recover your
spirit;
Sluggish you will never see the wheel of fate
That brushes your heel as it
turns going by,
The man who wants to live is the man in whom life is abundant.
Now
you are only giving food to that final pain
Which is slowly winding you in the
nets of death,
But to live is to work, and the only thing which lasts
Is the work;
start there, turn to the work.
Throw yourself like seed as you walk, and into
your own field,
Don’t turn your face for that would be to turn it to death,
And do
not let the past weigh down your motion.
Leave what’s alive in the furrow, what’s
dead in yourself,
For life does not move in the same way as a group of
clouds;
From your work you will be able one day to gather
yourself.