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The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the
potter's oven?

     -Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)

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REMOVING THE PLATE OF THE PUMP ON THE HYDRAULIC SYSTEM OF THE BACKHOE

            Gary Snyder

 

Through mud, fouled nuts, black grime

it opens, a gleam of spotless steel

machined-fit perfect

swirl of intake and output

relentless clarity

at the heart

                                                                     of work.

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The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.

     John Ruskin