I Absolutely Love This Poem

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Kindness

by Naomi Shihab Nye



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.

Comments

  1. English RiderJanuary 21, 2010 at 8:22 PM

    Because Kindness Matters...

    ReplyDelete
  2. KathleenJanuary 21, 2010 at 8:40 PM

    OMG, but I love this poem. And I do believe these words with every fiber of my being. "The tender gravity of kindness" -- wow.

    ReplyDelete
  3. dsJanuary 21, 2010 at 9:23 PM

    Perfect. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  4. LydiaJanuary 21, 2010 at 11:35 PM

    This is wonderful and generates curiosity about the poet.
    You must speak to it till your voice
    catches the thread of all sorrows
    and you see the size of the cloth.     . .
    That phrase reminds me of the AIDS quilts made across the country in the 90s, each one representing a person lost, that became that one giant quilt traveling across America. I wonder about the kind of future memorial(s) for the victims of the Haiti earthquake...what form that might take.

    ReplyDelete
  5. LemonyRenee'January 22, 2010 at 5:19 AM

    That is quite, quite beautiful . . . and inspiring to me for the sad place I have been in for quite some time now.

    Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  6. RoseJanuary 22, 2010 at 3:12 PM

    So lovely. Thank you for this, I'm planning to link to this one if it's okay with you.

    ReplyDelete
  7. UnknownJanuary 22, 2010 at 6:15 PM

    Link away, Rose, it really is a lovely poem, isn't?? For all those who have made it to the other side of sorrow this says it all.

    ReplyDelete

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Hey, thanks for your thoughts and your time:>)

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