#68 - finding kindness in these dark times
Art by Leonid Pasternak
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 gaze at 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.
Other poems I read this week:
"Agenda in a time of fear: Be not afraid.
When things go wrong, do right.
Set out by the half-light of the seeker.
For the well-lit problem begins to heal.
Learn tropism toward the difficult.
We have not arrived to explain, but to sing.
Young idealism ripens into an ethical life.
Prune back regret to let faith grow.
When you hit rock bottom, dig farther down.
Grief is the seed of singing, shame the seed of song.
Keep seeing what you are not saying.
Plunder your reticence.
Songbird guards a twig, its only weapon a song."
-Citizen of Dark Times by Kim Stafford
"There’s blood soaking through his white tee-shirt now.
His sister pretends not to see it. They talk through the evening.
Around midnight she tells him the sheets on his bed are clean.
He thanks her and tells her he might sit on the porch,
Watch fireflies like he used to when he was little.
In the morning his bed hasn’t been slept in. There’s no note
On the kitchen table, just a few fireflies in a Mason jar,
Holes punched in the tin lid so they can breathe."
-from Wounded Men Seldom Come Home to Die by Austin Smith
“ All I want is to stop beginning sentences
with All I want. No—no really all
I want is this morning: my daughter
and my son saying “Da!” back and forth
over breakfast, cracking each other up
while eating peanut butter toast
and raspberries”
- from Time to be the fine line of light by Carrie Fountain
Recommended Listening:
I'm A Dreamer - Josephine Foster
Come and Be Alone with Me - The Jungle Giants
Baby, We're Really in Love by Hank Williams
Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir
Links of the Week:
Rus Khasanov's Marmalade Type (delicious!)
A Loner’s Guide to Planning and Cancellation by Liana Finck (MUST SEE!)
Ayaz Basrai on Letting Things Emerge (The Hard Copy is finally out in the world. And I interviewed Ayaz for it. Read about newspapers of the future, Rhizomatic thought and all the cool things the Busride Studio is doing. Go read, and check out India's newest website on design/tech/innovation while you're there. Congratulations, Meeta! :) )
Instagram Loving:
“Three things in human life are important: The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.”
-Henry James
good night,
rohini