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.

i too recognize the time when everything you thought was true was not, everything you held on to was gone, with nowhere to turn, nothing to grasp, my heart surrendered to this gentleness, this slowness, this kindness to myself, to others to the world at large. there is a softness i can't describe in the way i walk, the way i talked even the way i moved my eyes from one side of the room to the other, a softness from surrender, from giving up, from not trying to see what i wanted to see, to make things what i wanted them to be, the softness of simply allowing the beingness of everything that surrounded me to be what it must, to be authentic. during this time in my life, i will create this intention to be gentle with myself, gentle with my surroundings, gentle in the knowing that things are as they should be, they couldn't be any other way, or they would. allow, allow, allow and breathe....

Need to pack

but don’t want to so am reading poetry instead, here’s something that touched me:

Sometimes a man (woman) by rainer maria rilke

sometimes a man (in this case woman) stands up during supper and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking, because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.

and his (her) children say blessings on him as if he were dead.

and another man (woman), who remains inside his own house, dies there, inside the dishes and int he glasses, so that his (her) children have to go far out into the world toward that same church, which he (she) forgot.


is that how it happens? one is just overcome with the urge or knowledge on some inner level that it is time to stand up and walk out the door. why now? why there? why me? but the urge to stand up and walk is stronger than the urge to stay in the same safe, comfortable place and die within those 4 walls that surround and stifle you. sometimes that is how it happens for me, i’m stuck, i’m stagnant, i’m in a rut and then something moves me, something inspires me, something speaks to me, something deep inside connects with something i must find and i stand up and start walking, to where, i know not of but i know i have to move in order to find it.

Love After Love by Derek Walcott

the time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here, eat.
you will love again the stranger who was your self.
give wine. give bread. give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your image from the mirror.
sit. feast on your life.

just read this poem before jumping into the shower and couldn't move for a minute. right here on this page it says to me that at some time i will recognize the one true thing, the one true love of my life, the one that knows me best, knows my strengths, my weaknesses, loves me just the same, patiently waits while i chase after dreams, after the illusion of love outside of myself. i'm back....