La Suerte y el Trabajo

Este texto fue el primer dictado de la clase de Español y Literatura de décimo grado, y me gustó tanto que todavía hoy lo recuerdo. Aquí se los dejo, es un texto de las obras completas de José Martí. 

La Suerte siempre anda mirando a ver qué surge y el Trabajo, siempre con el ojo listo y el ánimo fuerte, hace que surja algo. La Suerte se está en la cama, deseando que el cartero le traiga la noticia de una herencia; mientras que el Trabajo se levanta a las seis, y con la pluma o el martillo pone los cimientos de un seguro bienestar. La Suerte siempre anda plañendo; el Trabajo silba. La Suerte se atiene al acaso; el Trabajo a la buena conducta. iQué os gusta más, la Suerte o el Trabajo?

José Martí

Your Task

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

Rumi

Two Cures for Love

1. Don’t see him. Don’t phone or write a letter.
2. The easy way: get to know him better.

Wendy Cope

Failing and Flying

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

Jack Gilbert

Warning

I absolutely love this poem, it's wonderful and it has such a character to it... it instantly got me. The first two lines are genial and it doesn't stop there. 

Here you can watch the author herself reading it. 

I hope you like it.

Warning

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Jenny Joseph

Atlas

There is a kind of love called maintenance
Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;

Which checks the insurance, and doesn't forget
The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;

Which answers letters; which knows the way
The money goes; which deals with dentists

And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,
And postcards to the lonely; which upholds

The permanently rickety elaborate
Structures of living, which is Atlas.

And maintenance is the sensible side of love,
Which knows what time and weather are doing
To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;
Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers
My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps
My suspect edifice upright in air,
As Atlas did the sky.

U.A. Fanthorpe

Nina

Un día como hoy, 2 de diciembre, pero hace ya muchas primaveras y muchos inviernos... nació mi abuela. Claro que no nació siendo mi abuela, ella también fue una linda bebita de cachetes rosaditos y manitas pequeñas de bebé.

Abuela querida, donde quiera que estés te mando un beso, y un abrazo grande y fuerte... Te queremos mucho aunque ya no te vemos, y te extrañamos inmensamente.
Todavía no han construido la máquina del tiempo, pero en cuanto pueda poner un pie dentro de una, a donde primero iré, es a verte. Voy a regresar a cualquiera de esos días en que caminaba de Los Pinos hasta tu casita del Capri, y desde que entraba por la puerta de la calle ya se respiraba ese aire de paz, tranquilidad y amor que siempre reinaba en tu casa y alrededor tuyo.

Sin ella saberlo, hacía cumplir, lo que alguna vez dijo la Madre Teresa de Calcuta: "que nadie se acerque a ti, sin que al irse se sienta un poco mejor y más feliz", esa era mi abuela. Al menos conmigo siempre fue así. Siento mucho no habérselo dicho a cada instante, pero así me sentía cuando ella estaba. Así era para mí ir a su casa, era encontrar paz, era sentirme completa, bien, verdadera... 

Ahora eso me falta, será que a medida que vamos creciendo y volviéndonos adultos nos vamos descompletando.