There are 6, 987, 000, 000 people in this world and with each person, an opportunity to extend small kindnesses.
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.
— Naomi Shihab Nye
Try It: Small Kindnesses
Write a poem on the topic of “small kindnesses”—either a kindness you extended, or a kindness someone (or something) extended to you, or a kindness you wish would be extended.
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Photo by S G, Creative Commons via Flickr.
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How to Write a Poem uses images like the buzz, the switch, the wave—from the Billy Collins poem “Introduction to Poetry”—to guide writers into new ways of writing poems. Excellent teaching tool. Anthology and prompts included.
“How to Write a Poem is a classroom must-have.”
—Callie Feyen, English Teacher, Maryland
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Donna Falcone says
This is just so incredibly beautiful.
Donna Falcone says
There will always be a deeper sorrow –
One more spade full of soil, cast off
One more insult to frail form and battered hearts
One more bracing against, and
One more inch of space required.
There will always be a higher call –
One more tender seed, sown
One more forehead kiss and quiet wink
One more cup of herbal chai, and
One more open room where we let mysteries unfold
together.
Sandra Heska King says
Oh, Donna… *This* is incredibly beautiful.
Donna Falcone says
Thank you.
Heather Eure says
May we all step up to that higher call. Thank you, Donna.
Sandra Heska King says
I wrote a poem about the kindness of one last week…
http://sandraheskaking.com/2016/11/the-day-after-the-election/
Heather Eure says
The ending is striking, Sandra. Thank you for sharing it.
Megan Willome says
Love this poem so much I used it the workshop! If you want to hear the story behind it–choosing kindness in the face of a situation that was anything but–listen to the interview with Naomi Shihab Nye at “On Being”: http://www.onbeing.org/program/naomi-shihab-nye-your-life-is-a-poem/8720
Heather Eure says
I will definitely check this out. Thanks so much for linking it, Megan.
Bethany R. says
“One more forehead kiss and quiet wink”
Beautiful poem, Donna.
Hopeful.
Monica Sharman says
Small Kindnesses
There are many kinds
and none are truly random,
a mathematician might say.
They’re all calculated, multi-variable
functions of the recipient. Small,
even infinitesimal acts, when we integrate
over the interval from zero
to infinity, give us the whole,
filling in the area under the curve.
Bethany R. says
Love this, Monica. I’ll have to share it with my husband (who teaches math). 😉
L.L. Barkat says
This is so tender. How’d you do that with math? Love it.
Sandra Heska King says
Cleverness multiplied…
Donna Falcone says
Monica – when I read that last line I could feel it in the chest… under the curve, I suppose. Beautiful. xo
Rick Maxson says
Ah! The softer side of math.
Heather Eure says
I just love the way your mind works, Monica.
Rick Maxson says
At the Tram Platform
We pass each day, under the tram platform—
they remain in their embrace, a moment,
and the moments around the small space.
Passing by, a woman sees the hand lifting, not yet
to his face, but for this she is in her own mind.
To capture life, we steal its motion and hide it
in stone and bronze. We imagine what is lost,
what is there a step before, a step after the touch,
beyond that, we are the exhibit and the observer.
You passersby will never know that he was kind,
that her touch had been the first for years
and he shook with excitement, laughed
with her as the artist insisted he concentrate.
I cannot tell you here the stagnant days
that dropped away as she followed instruction
and slipped the ring in her coat, how easy it was
to feel like something precious in his arms.
We will never know beyond mere words or thought or
form how they both went home with the other’s scent
on their clothing, for him a pleasant torture, for her
a legitimate reason to keep what was not hers, how
they lay awake those nights dreaming beyond that touch.
We will pass each day, under the tram platform,
and toss our hopes at them, like pennies in a fountain,
or write poems about what could have been. Some
will pass by silently, heads down, never seeing
the scattered copper dreams, eyes wide open in the sun.
Heather Eure says
An evocative and tender expression, Rick. Thank you.
Prasanta says
Love this prompt and the poem by Naomi Shihab Nye; beautiful! Thank you, Heather.
Small Things
He smiles through wrinkles
She’s in the nursing home now
A tear slides down his cheek
He brushes it away
She doesn’t see
He pushes the wheelchair
Slowly up the ramp he had built
So she could visit her home
And he’s never in his home anymore
Because he’s with her in that other home
Her white veil replaced now
With a crown of silver
And she is beautiful, beaming
Because she is loved—
And not alone
Did she say “I can’t do this alone”
Or did he simply “do”
She let go – of his hand and sat in the chair
Trusted someone else to do her walking
He placed his hands on the wheelchair-
And let go of himself
I only know about a ramp, a tear and days
One day spilling into the next
Leading to this day,
With a wheelchair, and a tear
I needed to know
To see that tear
To be reminded of
Small kindnesses
That probably
Were very many kindnesses
That built that ramp
That held that hand
That led to a tear
And I saw the smile
Reach across the room
And did you happen to see the hand
That opened the door
Letting in a light of hope
And did you catch the hug that emptied
The sadness of the day
I happened to read the note left behind
Words curing a heart
I saw ramps being built
Around us today
Did you happen to see?
Donna Falcone says
Oh, my.
Thank you for this.
And now I must go and find some tissue.
xo
Prasanta says
🙂 Thank you, Donna.
Katie says
Hi all:)
Wow, have been inspired again by everyone’s shares, thank you!
I’m still in acrostic mode:
Sharing
Memories
Around the table
Letting
Love
Kindle
In our hearts
Now
Deeper
Nearer
Ever
Softer
Steadier
Endless
Stream of hope
This was inspired by the moments sharing memories of my father-in-law with his children, grands, great-grands, and family. What a wonderful man and a wonderful life! We miss you Poppa.
LINDA REID says
I REALLY LIKE ALL THE POEMS ON HERE ABOUT KINDNESS. WE NEED KINDNESS
IN OUR WORLD SO MUCH TODAY.
I LOVE THE KINDNESS OF A BEAUTIFUL DAY LIKE TODAY.
THE SKY SO CLEAR, THE SUN SO BRIGHT
SHINING LIKE IT NEVER DID BEFORE.
I LOVE THE KINDNESS THAT BROUGHT THE SURPRISE OF TODAY-
THOUGH VERY COLD AND GLOOMY YESTERDAY
THE KINDNESS OF THE WARMTH OF THE SUN AND THE BEAUTY
OF THE CLEAR BLUE SKY
LIFTED MY SPIRITS AND LET THEM FLY.
FLY TO HOPE AGAIN, TO KNOW THERE WILL BE A SUNRISE
A SUNSET TO LOOK FORWARD TO.
THERE WILL BE BIRDS SINGING IN THE TREES EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE BARE
THERE WILL BE THESE SIGNS OF KINDNESS EVERYWHERE.