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.
"from the crowd of the world"
my photographs may share faces of need from the cobblestones of
san miguel de allende...
a place of intimacy so close to my heart,
but there are no borders when it comes to poverty and hunger.
even as naomi paints a poignant face of poverty in her poetry here,
she is speaking straight to the heart of humanity as she makes her plea for kindness.
it seems we cannot turn in any direction without realizing
a real and compelling need.
i am joining naomi in a call to
kindness.
any season, home, country without kindness and humanity
is a desert bereft of heart and water.
This is one of my favorite poems by Naomi Shihab Nye. I have it on my blog. She wrote it for her daughter, actually, as a kind of lesson in kindness. It fits so many occasions, but since She is the daughter of a Palestinian father and an American mother and lived in Ramallah, the old city in Jerusalem during high school, she knows more than many the significance of such kindness. I love the images that you have placed here today to accompany her poem. They are fitting and beautiful. Thank you for this.
xoxo,
Noelle
Posted by: Noelle | February 21, 2011 at 09:33 AM
Yes, I agree with Noelle, Naomi Shihab Nye's words come alive with your photographs, Rebecca!
Each person we meet is fighting some kind of battle, but poverty is a black hole that has the power to suck a person down to the darkest depths.
Thank you for your compassion. For taking the time to write about our brothers and sisters in Mexico.
I've been working on my shrine~~
xox
Constance
Posted by: rochambeau | February 21, 2011 at 11:58 AM
Kindness is love made visible.
Posted by: Ms. Moon | February 21, 2011 at 01:41 PM
Beautiful beautiful words that match the soft kindness of the faces here.
x..x
steph
Posted by: stephanie | February 21, 2011 at 02:26 PM
oh, how i wish i didn't have to lose in order to know, to really know...
this is an extraordinary poem
Posted by: Mary | February 21, 2011 at 02:55 PM
I love that poem, and you've complimented it perfectly with your poetry. I am grateful for the reminder of kindness --
Posted by: Elizabeth | February 21, 2011 at 07:44 PM
"Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth."
Yes. To know real love, real kindness, we must experience need in ourselves. Your photos tell this story well...
Posted by: Leslie | February 22, 2011 at 11:36 AM
Gorgeous.
And is it so ?
Do the ones who have never suffered not really understand? I've always wondered about this.
Posted by: deb @ talk at the table | February 24, 2011 at 05:20 AM