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The World

A man from the town of Neguá, on the coast of Colombia,
could climb into the sky.

On his return, he described his trip.
He told how he had contemplated human life from on high.
He said we are a sea of tiny flames.

The world, he revealed,
is a heap of people, a sea of tiny flames.

Each person shines with his or her own light.
No two flames are alike.
There are big flames and little flames,
flames of every color.
Some people’s flames are so still
they don’t even flicker in the wind,
while others have wild flames that fill the air with sparks.
Some foolish flames neither burn nor shed light,
but others blaze with life so fiercely
that you can’t look at them without blinking
and if you approach, you shine in fire.

-Eduardo Galeano