Kindness
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
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Kindness – experienced the flood of kindness when I suddenly became separated and my life as I expected disappeared. And from that kindness, I found my way to love again. How powerful to have a poem sent to me to feel the appreciation for the kindness I have in my life. Thank you, Colleen.
“And from that kindness, I found my way to love again…” Karen, your comment is poetic.
So glad this poem resonated with you too.
Beautiful poem! The second verse reminded me of an incident from our last day in Vegas this past week. As we were walking back to our hotel around ll pm we saw cars swerving around a large object taking up half the lane — it was a man — dead drunk! Bob helped him onto the sidewalk but the guy couldn’t even sit up. We alerted the police who said they would look after him, but I wonder what happened … so sad.
Wow Martha. He’s lucky you guys came along. I wonder what his story was. You have to wonder…sad too, that no one stopped. I’d say and Bob were his angels-in-disguise that night.
Beautifully written!
Good to imagine walking in someone else’s shoes to
Understand the true gravity of their life!
Laurie. So true, that if we can make an effort to empathize and imagine our way into someone else’s circumstances, we have the beginnings of understanding.
I like this. A kind word, a ready smile make your existence more pleasant. You do not feel such a stranger.
Catherine, it’s so true. The shortest distance between two people is a shared smile or laugh.
If you get a chance, read the interview I linked through her name at the bottom of the poem. When you read the circumstances under which she wrote this, it’s even more compelling.
Beautiful. I’m excited that she’s going to be the keynote speaker at the Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference in Homer, Alaska next June.
That is so cool. I think I need to check this out. I’ve always wanted to go to Alaska. She would be a big draw.